-06_questions and answers 5.htm

The True Adventure

          Last year when I announced to you the manifestation of the supramental consciousness and light and force, I should have added that it was an event forerunner of the birth of a new world. But at that time the new world was so much engulfed in the ancient that even now there are very few people who are aware of its birth and of the difference it brings into the world. Yet the

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action of the new forces has continued in a very regular, very persistent, very obstinate and, to a certain extent, very effective way. The result of all that has been noted at every step in almost day to day experiences. It may be expressed in a concise, so to say, linear way. First of all, it is not merely a new conception of the spiritual life and the divine Reality. Sri Aurobindo has expressed this conception in the most clear and complete manner. Briefly it may be formulated somewhat like this :

    The old spirituality was an escape from life towards the divine Reality, leaving the world where it was, as it was. Our new vision, on the contrary, is the divinisation of life, the transformation of the material into a divine world. This has been said, repeated, more or less understood; this indeed is the basic idea of what we want to do. But this work could have been a simple continuation, an amelioration, an enlargement of the old world as it was. And the whole conception, however true, however new it may be, so long as it remains in the higher regions, in the domain of pure idea, can be only potentially a new creation. But what has happened is truly a new thing, a new world has been born. It is not the old that is being transformed, it is quite a new world that has been really concretely born.

    At the present hour we are in the very heart of a period of transition, where the two are intertwined : the old persists, still all powerful, continues to dominate the ordinary consciousness, while the new glides in, still very modest, unnoticed to the extent that for the moment it disturbs nothing much externally, and even in the consciousness of most people it is quite imperceptible. And yet it works, it grows till the moment when it will be strong enough to impose itself visibly.

    In any case, to simplify one can say that the old world, the creation of what Sri Aurobindo calls the Overmind, the Over-mental, was in a characteristic way the age of the gods and therefore the age of religions. The flower of man’s effort towards that which was higher than him gave birth to numerous religions, to a religious relation between the souls of the select few and the invisible world, and at the summit of all that, as an effort towards a still higher realisation, was born this idea of the unity of

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religions, of Something that is unique, which is behind all manifestation—and this idea was really the ceiling of human aspiration. This conception is on the borderland; it is something which still belongs wholly to the overmental world, to the overmental creation and from there seems to look at another thing, something of which it has only a presentiment, which is a new creation it tries to attain but is unable to seize. To seize it, what is needed is a reversal. One must come out of the overmental creation. But for that, the new creation, the supramental creation must have had taken place.

     And now all those old things seem so old, so antiquated, so arbitrary, such a travesty of the true truth !

    In the supramental creation there will no more be religions. All life will be the expression, the flowering in forms of the Divine Unity manifesting in the world. And there will be no more what men now call the gods.

    These great divine beings themselves will be able to participate in the new creation, but for that they must put on what we may call the supramental substance on earth. And if there are some who choose to remain in their world, as they are, if they decide not to manifest themselves physically, their relation with the other beings of the supramental world on earth will be a relation of friends, of collaborators, of equal to equal, because the highest divine essence will have manifested in the beings of the new supramental world on earth.

    When the physical substance will be supramentalised, to be born on earth in a body will not be a cause of inferiority, rather the contrary, there will be gained a plenitude which could not be obtained otherwise.

     But all that is of the future, a future that has begun but will take some time before realising itself integrally. In the meanwhile, we are in a very special situation, extremely special which has had no precedent. We are attending on the birth of a new world, altogether young, altogether weak—weak not in its essence, but in its external manifestation—not yet recognised, not yet felt, denied by most; but it is there, it is there endeavouring to grow and quite sure of the result. Yet, the road to reach there

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is a new road, that has never before been traced; none went by that way, none did that. It is a beginning, a universal beginning. Therefore it is an adventure absolutely unexpected and unforeseeable.

     There are people who love adventure, and to them I give a call and I tell them:

     I invite you to the great adventure, and in this adventure you are not to repeat spiritually what others have done before us, because our adventure begins from beyond that stage. We are for a new creation, entirely new, carrying in it all the unforeseen, all risks, all hazards,—a true adventure of which the goal is sure victory, but of which the way is unknown and has to be traced out step by step in the unexplored. It is something that has never been in the present universe and will never be in the same manner. If that interests you, well, embark. What will happen tomorrow, I do not know.

     You must leave behind whatever has been foreseen, whatever has been designed, whatever has been built up, and then on the march into the unknown. Come what may !

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"A new humanity…would be possessed already of what could be called a mind of Light, a mind capable of living in the truth, capable of being truth-conscious and manifesting in its life a direct in place of an indirect knowledge. Its mentality would be an instrument of the Light and no longer of the Ignorance. At its highest it would be capable of passing into the supermind".

                                                                                                                                                                                         Sri Aurobindo—The Supramental Manifestation.

     This is certainly what Sri Aurobindo expected of us and what he conceived superman should be, an intermediary being between humanity as it is and the supramental being created supramentally, that is to say, no longer belonging to animality in any way, freed from all animal needs.

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     But such as we are, we have been created in the ordinary animal way and therefore even if we are transformed, something of the animal origin will remain. The supramental being, as conceived by Sri Aurobindo, is not at all formed in the ordinary animal way, but directly, by a process which for the moment still appears occult to us; it is a direct handling of the substance and forces in such a way that the body is a materialisation and not a formation following the ordinary animal principle.

    It is quite evident that there must be intermediary beings. It is they who are to find means for creating supramental beings and there can be no doubt that when Sri Aurobindo wrote it, he was convinced that it is this that we have to do.

    I think…I know it is now certain that we shall realise what he expects of us. It is no longer a hope, it has become a certainty. Only the time necessary for the realisation will be more or less long according to our individual effort, our concentration, our good will—and the importance we attach to the fact.

    To an inattentive observer, things seem to have changed very little, but for him who knows how to see and is not deceived by appearances, things are in a fair way. Let everyone do his best; perhaps it will not be necessary for many years to pass before the first visible results will become apparent to all.

     It is for you to know whether that interests you more than anything else in the world.

     A moment comes when the very body finds that there is nothing in the world worth living for as much as that, namely, the transformation, that there is nothing that can be as passionately interesting as the transformation. It is as if all the cells of the body were athirst for this Light that wants to manifest. They cry for that, and they find in it an intense joy and they are sure of the Victory.

     It is this aspiration that I am endeavouring to communicate to you and you will understand all the rest in fife is dull, insipid, useless, without value in comparison with that, — the transformation into the Light.

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How to awaken in the body the aspiration for the Divine ?

     Naturally there are many ways of doing it and, in fact, each one must find his own. The starting-point may be very different according to people, even almost opposite, in appearance.

     In the past when Yoga was escape from life, apart from the predestined few, people normally thought of yoga only when they were old, when they had lived much and known all the vicissitudes of life, its pleasures, its sorrows, its joys, its miseries, its burdens, its disillusions, that is to say, all that fife generally brings to human beings. When they had recovered a little from the illusion of life’s joys, they became ripe to think of other things, and if their body was not full of juvenile enthusiasm, at least not become cumbersome having known satiety, it did not demand anything greater.

    To take things by that end is very good when one wants to abandon life for the sake of spirituality and does not expect the body to take any share in the transformation. Evidently it is the easiest way. But also it is evident that if this material life is required to take part in the divine life, to be made its field of action and realisation, then it is preferable not to wait till the body wears out and becomes so quieted as not to be an obstacle to Yoga. It is better, on the contrary, to take it quite young when it is all energy, when it can put into its aspiration a sufficient ardour and intensity. Then instead of relying on fatigue that needs nothing any longer, you must rely on an inner enthusiasm for the unknown, the new, the perfection and if you are fortunate to five under conditions where you can receive help and guidance from your childhood, then you must try even as a child to distinguish between the fugitive joys and superficial pleasures that fife can give and that marvellous thing life and action and growth would be in a world of perfection and truth in which all ordinary limits, all ordinary incapacities would be abolished.

    When you are young and when you are what I call "wellborn", that is to say, born with a psychic being conscious of itself, always there is in your dreams this aspiration, which is for the child’s consciousness a kind of ambition for something which

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is beauty without ugliness, justice without injustice, kindness without limit, for a success that is conscious, constant, a perpetual miracle. When you are a child you dream of miracles, you want all wickedness to disappear, everything to be always luminous and beautiful and happy, you love stories that end happily. It is that on which you must rely. When the body feels its miseries, its limits, you must set there the dream of a force that knows no limit, a beauty that knows no ugliness, the dream for wonderful powers, power to rise up in the sky, to be wherever it is necessary to be, to re-establish order when things go bad, to cure the sick, in short, all dreams you have when you are a child.

     Generally, parents or educators pass their time in throwing cold water on all that, telling you : "Oh, that ! it is a dream, it is no reality." It is just the contrary that one should do. You must teach the children : "yes, that you must try to realise, and not only it is possible, it is sure and certain, if you can establish a relation with that within you which is capable of the thing, that must direct your life, organise it, make you grow in the direction of the true real which the ordinary world calls illusion.

    You must do that, instead of turning children into ordinary people with their flat vulgar common sense which becomes an inveterate habit and causes, whenever something goes well, the idea to enter immediately into the being : "Oh, that’s not going to last !" or when someone is nice, this impression :"Oh, that’s going to change !" or when you are capable of doing something : "Oh, tomorrow I shall not be able to do it so well"! That is like an acid in the being, a destroying acid that takes away all hope, certainty, faith in future possibility.

    When a child is full of enthusiasm, never throw cold water upon his enthusiasm, never tell him : ‘"you know, life is not like that !" On the contrary, you should always encourage him, tell him : "Yes, at present things are not always like that, they appear ugly, but behind the appearance, there is a beauty that seeks to realise itself. That you must love, that you must draw to you, that must be the object of your dreams and your ambitions".

     If that were done from childhood, there would be much less difficulty than what would be if one were to undo, undo all

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the bad work done by a bad education, undo that flat vulgar common sense which is the reason why one expects nothing good from life, and why it appears dull and irksome and why all hopes and all so-called illusory dreams of beauty are contradicted. You should rather tell the child, or tell yourself, if you are not quite a baby : "all that in me appears unreal, impossible, illusory is exactly what is true, what I must cultivate. When I have such aspirations as: ”Oh, not to be limited all the time by incapacity, all the time stopped by a bad will", I must cultivate in me this certitude that that is essentially true and that I must realise.

     Then faith awakes in the cells of the body. And you will see that you find a response in your body itself. The very body will feel that if the inner will is there to help, strengthen, direct, lead, all limitations will disappear little by little.

    And when the first experience comes, sometimes at an early age, when you have the first contact with the inner joy, the inner beauty, the inner light, it makes you feel all on a sudden : "Ah! it is this that I want !" You must never forget it, you must nurture it, place it before you and tell yourself: "I have felt it once, therefore I can feel it again. It was true for me, even if it was only for the span of a second. That I shall bring back to me". You must encourage the body to search for it, to search with the faith that it carries in itself the possibility and if it calls for it, it will be realised once more.

     This you must do when you are young, this you must do everytime you have the occasion to gather yourself, collect yourself, look for your own self.

    Then you will see; when you are normal, that is to say, when you are not spoilt by bad education or by bad examples, when you live in a healthy and relatively balanced environment, the body has spontaneously the certitude, without any need of mental or vital intervention, that if something does not go well, it will pass away. It carries in itself the certainty of cure, the certainty that the illness or indisposition will presently disappear. It is simply because of the wrong education the body receives from the surroundings that it learns gradually that there are irreparable illnesses, irreparable accidents, that old age is bound to come,

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all those things which take away its faith and confidence. But normally, in a normal child, the body, I do not speak of the mind, the body itself feels that things will be set right if there is any wrong anywhere. And if it is not like that, it means that the body has already gone wrong. It seems normal for the body to be in good health, and it seems quite abnormal that something should go wrong and it should fall ill; by instinct, a spontaneous instinct it is sure that it will be all right. It is only the wrong thought that robs it of that. Unfortunately as you grow the mind goes more and more wrong, you submit to all the collective suggestions and gradually the body loses all self-confidence and naturally when it loses self-confidence, it loses the spontaneous capacity to reestablish the equihbrium when it has gone wrong.

    If you have been taught from your very childhood all these things that deceive, depress, decompose, I may even say, disintegrate the body, it does its best, but it has been perverted, falsified and it has no more, it has lost the sense of the strength within it, the force within it, its power to react.

    If, on the contrary, you are careful not to falsify it, the body carries in itself the certainty of victory. It is the bad use made of the mind and its influence on the body that takes away from it this certitude.

    Therefore the first tiling to do is to cultivate this certitude instead of destroying it. With that, aspiration becomes no longer an effort, but a simple flowering, un unfolding of this inner certainty of victory. The body carries within itself the sense of its divinity.

    That you must try to find again in you, if you have lost it.

    When a child tells you a beautiful dream in which he had very many powers, in which things were very beautiful, take care never to tell him : "Oh! life is not like that", because you will do a wrong thing. On the contrary you must tell him : "Life should be like that and it must be !"

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When can one say that one is ready for the integral Yoga ?

    When one has established in oneself a perfect equality of soul in all circumstances. That is the indispensable condition, the absolutely necessary basis; something very quiet, very calm, very peaceful and the feeling of a great force. Not the quietness that comes from inertia, but the feeling of a concentrated strength which keeps you always equal whatever happens, even in the midst of the most terrible circumstances of life.

    Certain signs precede this state and show that you are well on the way.

    A time comes, for example, when you feel literally imprisoned in the ordinary consciousness, squeezed as it were within something extremely narrow and hard. You feel suffocated, the constraint becomes almost unbearable, you try to free yourself only to knock against walls that seem to be made of bronze.

    That means that the consciousness within has reached a point where the outer mould has become too small for it. The ordinary life, the ordinary activities, the ordinary relations, all appear so small, so petty ! You feel within yourself a force that is about to burst open this too narrow covering.

   Yet another sign is that whenever you concentrate and aspire, you feel a force, a light, a peace coming down into you, — you aspire and the j-answer is immediate. This shows that the relation is well" established.

When there is this sensation of being imprisoned in something too narrow, what is to be done ?

    Not to be violent, above all. Violence will only exhaust you without any result.

   If you are conscious of the flame within, gather all your power of aspiration, concentrate it intensely in a call on this flame. Throw into it whatever you can so that it may blaze more and more and yet remaining as quiet as you can. If you are restless, if you

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flutter, if you become nervous, you will arrive nowhere. Be perfectly at peace, be trustful, the answer will come.

And when you are in this state, all your force and aspiration concentrated into the flame within, then slowly exert a pressure on what is the outer crust, without violence, but with insistence and as long as you can without getting agitated, irritated or excited.

If you do that, you are sure to succeed. Not the very first time, it is certain, but begin as often and as long as it will be necessary until the day when all on a sudden you come out into an ocean of Light.

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In what way can the teaching of Buddha whom Sri Aurobindo considers as an Avatara be at present an obstacle or an aid on the way to Supramentalisation ?

    All that helps humanity to make a progress is a help and all that prevents it from making a progress is an obstacle.

    The forms of the Divine Power that incarnated in different beings such as the Buddha did so with a special purpose, for a special work, at a special moment in the universal evolution, but essentially they are but differentiated aspects of the one and the same Being; the difference therefore lies in the specialisation of the action, otherwise it is always the same Truth, the same Power, the same Life Eternal that manifests under all these forms and creates these forms at a given moment for a special reason and a special purpose. That continues to occur in history, and ever new forms are being used for a new progress. The old forms may continue, as a vibration continues but the reason of their existence, historically, one might say, is only temporary and one form is replaced by another for a new step forward. Man’s error is to cling always to what is behind, to want the past to continue indefinitely.

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     These teachings should be utilised at the time when they are useful, for there is also the history of each individual development. You may go through the stages when such disciplines, as Dhammapada, for example, have an utility for the time, but when you have passed beyond the stage, you should follow another discipline and see that what was useful to you historically is no longer so now. Certainly, I will not say to those who have reached a certain state of growth and of mastery of the mind, "read the Dhammapada and meditate on it"; that would be waste of time. I give that to those who have not passed beyond the state when it is necessary.

     But always man loads his shoulders with endless burdens. He does not want anything of the past to fall away and he is more and more bent down under the weight of an useless accumulation.

     On a bit of your way you have a guide, but when you have crossed this bit of the way, leave the way and the guide, go farther on. This is a thing that men do with difficulty. When they get hold of a thing that helps them, they clutch at it, would not move any more. It is why those who have progressed with the help of Christianity would not give it up and they carry it on their shoulders; those who have progressed through Buddhism would not abandon it but carry it on their shoulders and that slows down your march and delays you indefinitely.

     Once you have passed the stage, let it drop, let it disappear ! go forward !

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How can one work to help in changing the conditions of the present world ?

     Looking at the actual state of the world many are the people who despair and groan : "Why is the world so frightful ?" But it is quite useless to lament, what is useful is that it should change. Since the world is detestable—we all agree on that point—since it

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is not what it should be, the only thing for us to do is to work so that it may be different.

     But how, individually, to make it otherwise ?

     There is one means within the reach of all: and that is to change oneself. If you can tell yourself: "I do not know very well what I am, but this combination of things that constitute me is perhaps my share of the work and if I can do it as best as I can, perhaps that would be the best that I could do". That is a very great beginning, very great. And it is not crushing, it is not beyond the limit of your possibilities. You have always in your hand, one might say, a field of action in proportion to your strength and it is manifold, complex, vast and profound enough to be interesting, an unknown world into which to go for new discovery.

     Perhaps you will tell me : "But then it is egoism !" It is egoism, if you do it in the egoistic way, for your personal profit, if you try, for example, to acquire powers, to become strong so as to influence others, if you seek means to make your life comfortable. Naturally in that case it will be egoistic. Besides remember that you will gain nothing. You will begin to deceive yourself, you will five in the midst of growing illusions and fall back into greater and greater obscurity. Things are organised much better than one believes….The condition required is an absolute sincerity in your aspiration for the realisation of the divine work.

     If you start like that, I can guarantee that you will make such an interesting voyage that even if it takes a very long time, you will never be tired of it. If you have a strong will, an unfailing perseverance and that indispensable good humour which enables you to smile at all difficulties and errors, then everything will go well.

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      Sri Aurobindo writes : "The descent of the Supermind will bring to one who receives it and is fulfilled in the truth-consciousness all the possibilities of the divine life. It will take up not only the whole characteristic experience which we recognise already as constituting the spiritual life but also all which we now exclude from that category…"

                                "The Supramental Manifestation" p. 86

What is it that we exclude ?

     That depends on people. Here we profess that we exclude nothing. It is just that. We have admitted all human activities whatsoever, including those that are considered the least spiritual. But I must say it is more difficult to change their nature. However, we try, we put in all possible good will.

It is said also that the supramental descent will make the change easier ?

     There are two points that are very resisting. They are all that concerns politics and all that concerns money. These are the two points where it is most difficult to change man’s attitude.

     We have said that in principle we have nothing to do with politics and it is true that we have nothing to do with politics as it is practised now. But obviously if politics is taken in its true spirit, that is to say, as organisation of human masses and all details of government, regulation of the collective life and its relations with other collectivities, that is to say, other nations, other countries, then necessarily that also becomes part of the supramental transformation, because as long as the lives of nations and the relations between the nations are what they are, it will be absolutely impossible to live a supramental life on earth. So, that also must change and that also must be dealt with.

    As for the financial question, that is to say, finding a way of exchange and production which is simple, I mean which should be simple, more simple than the primitive exchange in which one had to give one thing in order to

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get another, something which is in principle general to earthly existence or universal, that also is indispensable for simplifying life. But with human character as it is, it is just the contrary that happens and the situation has so turned as to become almost intolerable. It has become almost impossible to have the least relation with other countries, and the famous means of exchange which was meant for a simplification has become such a complication that soon it will end in an impossibility,—one has come very very near not being able to do anything, being bound for everything. If you want to have the least thing from another country you have to follow such a complicated and laborious procedure that in the end you will have to remain in your little corner and be satisfied with the potatoes you grow in your own garden, without hoping to know anything of what happens or is produced elsewhere in the world.

     Well, these two points, political and financial, are the two points most resisting. In the human consciousness it is that which is most dominated by the forces of ignorance, of inconscience and very generally, I must say, of bad will. That is what most refuses to progress, to move forward to the truth and unfortunately in every individual human being also that is the resisting point, the point that remains narrowly stupid, refusing to understand anything that is not in its habits. It is, therefore, truly a heroic action to wish to take up these things and transform them. That too is being tried, for unless this is done, it will be impossible to change the conditions on earth.

    Relatively, very relatively it is easier to change economic and social conditions than the political and financial. There are certain general, terrestrial ideas, from the economic and social point of view, to which human mind has access, certain liberations and widenings, a certain collective organisation which do not seem absolutely meaningless and unrealisable, but as soon as you touch the other two questions which are yet of capital importance, particularly the political question, things become quite different…. Because one could imagine a life freed from all these financial complications, although it would be—it is not merely a play of words—a true impoverishment. There is, in what financial possibilities

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and procedures bring a considerable wealth of possibilities, because, if used in the true way and in the true spirit, they would simplify to a very great degree all the relations and enterprises of man, allow a complexity in life which would be difficult in other conditions. But I do not know for what reason, unless it is that the worst always precedes the best, instead of taking the way to simplification, things have taken the way to complication to such an extent that, in spite of aeroplanes that take you in two days from one end of the earth to the other, in spite of all the modern inventions which tend to make life so "small", so close that instead of going round the world in eighty days you do it in a few hours, I say, in spite of all that, the complications of exchange, for example, are so great that there are people who find themselves unable to go out of their home, I mean, out of the country where they are, because they have no means to go to another country and if they ask, for example, the requisite money to live in another country, they are told : "Is your travel so very important, you could perhaps wait a little, because for us it is very difficult at this moment". I am not joking, it is serious, it is happening. That is to say, we are becoming more and more prisoners at the place where we are born, whereas all the trends of Science have brought the countries so closely near that one could easily belong to the universe, in any case, to the earth.

     This is the situation. It has become worse considerably since the last war and it is growing worse and worse every year. People now find themselves in such a ridiculous situation that, as they are at the end of their resources to simplify what they have so much complicated, the idea is sprouting in earth’s atmosphere, an idea I would call absurd, but unfortunately it is worse than absurd, catastrophic, the idea that if there were a great destruction, perhaps it would be better afterwards.

    People are so much tightened within prohibitions, impossibilities, interdictions, rules and regulations, complications every second that they are on the point of being suffocated and have this truly admirable idea that if all were demolished, perhaps something better might follow. That is floating in the air and governments have placed themselves in such impossible conditions, they

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have bound themselves down so much that it appears to them that they must break everything in order to be able to go forward ….Unfortunately it is more than just a possibility, it is a very grave menace….And it is not quite sure that life will not be made still more impossible, because one feels incapable of coming out of the complications in which mankind has put itself. It is like a shadow —unfortunately a very active shadow—of the new hope that has grown in the human consciousness, the hope and need of something more harmonious. And this need is becoming more and more acute as the life organised as at present is becoming more and more the opposite of all harmony. The two contraries stand face to face so intensely that one can expect something like an explosion.

    This is the condition upon earth and it is not very brilliant. But for us there is yet a possibility. I have spoken about it already to you on several occasions. Even if things outside are spoilt altogether and a catastrophe cannot be avoided, for us there still remains, I mean those for whom the suprarnental life is not a vain dream, they who have faith in its reality and aspiration to realise it, —I do not mean they are necessarily those who have met here at Pondicherry in the Ashram, but all v/ho are bound together by the tie of the knowledge that Sri Aurobindo has given and the will to live by this knowledge,—for them, I say, there still remains the possibility of intensifying their aspiration, their will, their effort, collecting their energies and shortening the time of the realisation, the possibility of doing the miracle individually, also collectively, in a certain measure, to conquer space and time, the duration necessary for the realisation, to replace time by the intensity of effort and to go quick enough and far enough in realisation so that they may be freed from the consequences of the present world situation, to make such a concentration of force and power and light and truth that through this very realisation one would be above and safe from these consequences and enjoy the protection given by the Light and the Truth, by the Purity, the divine Purity through inner transformation and the storm might pass over the earth without it being able to destroy the great hope of the near future, the

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hurricane might not sweep away this beginning of realisation.

     Instead of going to sleep in an easy quiescence, letting things to be done according to their own rhythm, if you string your will, your ardour, your aspiration and if you come out into the Light, then you can hold your head high above, you can, in a higher region of consciousness, find a place to live, to breathe and to grow and develop above the passing cyclone.

It is possible in a small measure….It was done during the last war when Sri Aurobindo was there. That can be done over again, but one must have the will for it and every one must do his portion of the work as sincerely and as completely as he can.

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What will be the place of occultism in the supramental world ? Everything being known in the supramental world, there would be no need of learning occultism.

     You believe one learns occultism as one learns to play on the piano ? But it is not quite in that way that the things happen; for here we are concerned with a plane of consciousness other than the material. In fact, if you do not have a special disposition, you might read the whole world of books on occultism, you would never be able to do it. It is a special faculty.

     It is also true however that you might read all the books available in the world on how to play on the piano, still if you do not actually play you will never know how to play. There are born musicians, born artists and there are people who may labour all their life and yet will never succeed in anything. It is the same thing with occultism. If you mean that when one will be a supramental being, one will have the aptitude to do everything, that is all right; but it is not said that the gift will be spontaneous. It may be that you will be capable of doing everything potentially, but you may not necessarily do everything. There will be all the same differences and classifications, special assignments

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according to people and their individual tastes. And I do not see why you should deprive the suprarnental world of the occult faculty, more than any other.

What is your idea of the Supramental life ? A paradise where everybody will do the same thing, in the same way…the old idea of heaven where everybody is an angel playing on the harp ? It is not exactly like that. All the differences will be there, the differentiations and the different acitivites, but instead of acting with ordinary human ignorance one will act with knowledge, that will make the difference.

Will not the Powers be greater in the supramental life ?

     You take occultism in the sense of the power to act on life and things as a process, but that is not occultism, that is magic.

     Occultism is a special use of the consciousness. For the moment, in the way it is practised among human beings, it is a direct and conscious perception of the forces behind the appearances and the play of these forces; and because you have a direct perception of them, you have the power to act on them and you bring a more or less higher will to intervene in the play of forces to obtain a desired result.

Will not people have these powers spontaneously in the supra-mental ?

     Spontaneously !…But everybody does occultism, without, however, knowing it. Everyone has this power spontaneously, but perhaps a very small power, like a pinhead, or that may be big, as big as the earth or the universe. You cannot live without doing occultism, only you do not know it. When you have the suprarnental consciousness you will know, that is the only difference.

     I have already explained to you very often that when you think you do an act of occultism. When you think of someone,

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automatically, something in you comes in contact with that person and if you add to your thought a will that the person should be like this or that, he should do this or that, understand this or that, indeed you are doing occultism.

     Some people do it powerfully, and when they have a strong thought, that manifests and realises itself. In the case of some it is quite harmless and does not produce a big result. That depends upon the strength of your thought and also your power of concentration. It is an occultism that everybody does. The difference with one who truly does occultism is that he knows what he does and knows partially how he does it.

Will not every one do occultism consciously in the supramental world ?

      There will always be different ways of approach to things. May be the occult power will become more general, but if you imagine a world in which everybody will equally have the same occult power, then there will exist no difference. People who have occult power act on those who do not have it, but if everyone has the power to an equal extent, then it will no longer be occultism.

      I am convinced that even in the most perfect supramental realisation, there will always be difference in the capacities of people, and the functions given to each one, only instead of being or not being at his place, instead of doing or not doing what one should do, each one will be at his place—I hope always at his place—and will always do consciously what he should do. That is to say, instead of being there trying to know and groping in the dark, one will know what to do and will do it well, that is the whole difference. The differences will be there, each one will have his place, each one will have his activity. Do not believe that the whole world will begin to be alike and do the same thing in the same way,—that would be a frightful world.

     We can explain in this way what will distinguish the supra-mental from the present world : what you do not know you will

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know, what you cannot do you will do, what you do not understand you will understand and of what you are unconscious, you will become conscious. That is the basis of the new creation : to replace ignorance by knowledge, unconsciousness by consciousness and powerlessness by power. But that does not mean that all things will be mixed up and become unrecognisable.

     Sri Aurobindo has told us that in the supramental itself there are different planes of realisation and these planes will manifest successively in the same progressive movement that has always guided universal evolution. And that is simply because it has been till now a world closed to the majority of mankind or hardly half open to a few that it is difficult to conceive of a progress in the supramental life, but it will be there and since there is progress there is an ascent, a perfection that grows according to its own law, which unfolds gradually from the inconscient itself to a fully illumined consciousness and which works in the truth instead of working in the ignornace. The Unmanifest, which will use the supramental world for its manifestation and is not there wholly, totally, at one stroke, massively one might say, in the manifestation, but is progressive, will follow the same law of growth as the world we live in at present does, but instead of not knowing where we go, we shall know the way and follow it consciously. Instead of imagining, guessing or speculating on what should be, we shall -see where we go and we shall know how to go. That will be the essential difference with our actual world. Certainly, it will not be a dull existence in which everything exists indefinitely and without changing.

     I believe there is always in the human consciousness a tendency to arrive somewhere, sit down and regard it as final. "We have arrived, we settle down and move no more". That would be a poor supramental.

    But this movement of ascent and progress towards a growing perfection will certainly be still more marked in the supramental world than in our present world, and instead of unfolding in obscurity where everybody is blind and groping, it will unfold in the light and one will have the joy of knowing where one goes and how one goes there.

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       You must not then come and ask : "Will there be this thing ?" or "Will not there be that thing ?" There will be many more things than we have now. All the things that are possible will be there.

* * *

     "…whether the whole of humanity would be touched or only a part of it ready for the change would depend on what was intended or possible in the continued order of the universe."

                              "The Supramental Manifestation", p. 103,

     What does "what was intended or possible" mean? Are the things different ?

     It is the same thing. When you look at an object on a certain plane, you see it horizontally, and when you look at from another plane, you see it vertically. Now, if you look at it from above, you say "intended", and if you look at it from below, you say "possible". It is absolutely the same thing. Only the point of view is different.

    If you are in a consciousness that has a mental working, even if this mental level is the highest, you have the notion there of an absolute determinism of cause and effect and that things are what they are, because they are what they are and cannot be otherwise. Only when you come completely out of the mental consciousness and enter into a higher sense of things, one may call it spiritual or divine, that you find yourself suddenly in a state of perfect freedom where everything is possible.

    Those who have contacted that state or have lived it—even if it be for an instant—try to describe it by the impression it leaves of the play of an absolute will operating, which for the human mentality gives at once the sense of something arbitrary. And it is gives at once the sense of sometime arbitrary. And it is because of this deformation that the idea was born, the traditional idea, I may call it, of an arbitrary supreme God, and to the enlightened minds, this is one of the must unacceptable

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ideas. I imagine it is this experience, badly expressed that was the origin of the idea. And in fact it is inaccurate to express that as an absolute will, it is very very different, quite another thing, because, what man understands by "will" is a decision taken and carried out, and we are obliged to use the word "will", but the will that operates in the universe, is not in its truth, the result of a choice or a decision taken. The expression that seems to me nearest to the reality is "vision".

    Things are, because they are seen, spontaneously seen, not seen as we see with our eyes.. ..Yet it is all the same what is nearest, it is a vision, a vision that unfolds itself. The universe objectivises itself as it is being seen, and that is why Sri Aurobindo has said "intended or possible". It is neither the one nor the other. All that one can say deforms it. The objectivisation, the universal objectivisation is something like a projection into space and time, as a living image of what is since all eternity, and as this image is projected on the screen of time and space it is objectified—the Supreme contemplates his own image.

* * *

Why is it that at the very first sight one is attracted by certain persons, while for others one feels a repulsion ?

    Generally that is based on vital affinities, nothing else. There are vital vibrations that agree and there are vital vibrations that do not agree. It is generally this and nothing else. It is a vital chemistry.

    One must be in a much more profound and clear-seeing consciousness in order that the thing may be otherwise. There is an inner perception based on the psychic consciousness which makes you feel who are those that have the same aspiration, the same goal and who may be your companions on the way, and this perception makes you also see clearly as to those who follow

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a very different path or who have in them forces that are adverse to you and may do harm to your growth. But in order to arrive at this perception, one must be exclusively occupied with one’s spiritual progress and one’s integral realisation. And such is not often the case. Also generally when one attains this clear insight, it is not expressed by attraction or repulsion, but by a very objective knowledge, a kind of inner certitude which makes you act in a calm and thoughtful manner, not through attractions and repulsions.

     Therefore it can be said in a general and almost absolute way that people who have very definite and impulsive sympathies and antipathies are those that live in a vital consciousness. Some affinities of the mental order may be mixed up with that, in other words there are minds that like to have activities in common, but they are people on a much higher level in the intellectual order and that is further expressed also by a feeling of ease in the relation, by something much more quiet and detached. There is a pleasure in talking to some people and others offer no attraction and one finds no profit from their conversation. It is a little more distant and quiet; these relations belong furthermore to the world of reason. But sympathy and antipathy are clearly of the vital world.

    There is a vital chemistry as there is a physical chemistry. There are bodies that repel and there are bodies that attract. There are substances that combine, there are others that explode. It is like that. There are vital vibrations that agree and agree so well that in 99 cases out of a hundred these sympathies are taken for what men call love : all on a sudden they feel, "Oh ! he, it is for him I was waiting, Oh ! she, it is her that I was looking for" and they precipitate upon each other, until they find that all that was superficial and that these things cannot last. That is why the first advice given to one who wishes to do yoga is : "Rise above sympathies and antipathies". It is a thing that has no deep reality and may lead you, at the least, into difficulties that are sometimes rather insurmountable. With such things you can ruin your life. The best is not to take notice of them, to withdraw a little into yourself and ask for what reason—not

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very mysterious—you like to meet this person and do not like to meet the other.

     When you are occupied exclusively with you sadhana, a moment comes when you can feel—but in a manner at once much more subtle and much more quiet—that this contact is favourable to the sadhana and that one is harmful. But that feeling takes always a very detached form and often it is even in contradiction with the so-called vital attractions and repulsions, very often the two have nothing in common.

     The best then is to look at that from a little distance and to give a little sermon to yourself on the futility of these things.

     Evidently there are natures thoroughly bad, beings that are born wicked and love to do harm; and if you are in a natural and not perverted state like the animals,—for from that point of view animals are much superior to men, perversion begins with mankind—then logically you stand aloof as you would do from something thoroughly harmful. Fortunately such cases are not very frequent, what one meets generally in life is a very mixed nature in which good and bad somewhat balance each other and you can expect to have relations at once good and bad. There is no reason why you should feel a deep antipathy, because, you are yourself a mixed thing and similar meets the similar.

    It is said also that there are some individuals that are like vampires and when they come near another individual they spontaneously suck up his vitality and energy and so one should be on one’s guard as against a very grave danger. These things exist, but they too are not very frequent and, above all, not so total, that you need run away when you meet such a person.

     So then in brief if you want to grow spiritually, the first thing to do is to overcome your antipathies—and your sympathies. Look at all that with a smile.

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It seems the general consciousness has gone down since the Ashram began to grow in large proportions. What is the reason and how to raise the general level ?

     This is a thing somewhat complicated. I will try to explain it. For a long time the Ashram was only a gathering of individuals, each one representing something as an individual, but without any collective organisation. It was like isolated pawns on a chessboard and possessed only an apparent unity; there was rather the bare superficial fact of their living together at the same place and having some common habits, a few only, not many. Each one progressed—or did not progress—according to his own capacity and had a minimum relation with others. So in the measure of the individuals constituting this heterogeneous body, one could say there was a general value, but a very floating value with no collective reality. That lasted a very very long time.

     It is only quite recently that the necessity of a collective reality began to appear, a collective reality not necessarily limited to the Ashram but embracing all who have declared themselves —I do not mean physically, I mean, in their consciousness—as disciples of Sri Aurobindo, and who have endeavoured to live his teaching. In all of them and more strongly since the manifestation of the supramental consciousness and force, the necessity of a true common existence has awakened, which is based not merely upon purely material circumstances, but represents a deeper truth, and which is the beginning of what Sri Aurobindo calls a supramental or gnostic community.

    Naturally Sri Aurobindo has said that for this the individuals constituting the collectivity must themselves possess the supramental consciousness, but even before this perfection is attained individually, it has become necessary to make an inner effort to create this collective individuality, if one may say so. The need of a true union, a deeper bond is being felt and the effort has tended towards such a realisation. That has brought some trouble; because the tendency before was so much individualistic that certain habits have been upset, I do not mean physically, for things are not very different from what they were, but internally, in a

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little deeper consciousness, and a certain interdependence has been created—I insist on this point above all—which has somewhat lowered the individual level except for those who had already arrived at an inner realisation strong enough to resist the levelling action.

     It is this that gives the impression that the general level has come down which is not exact; the general level is on a higher plane than what was before, but the individual level has gone down in many cases, and individuals who were capable of one realisation or another have felt, without understanding it, weighed down under a load which they had not to carry before and which is due to this interdependence. But it is quite a temporary result and will finally end, on the contrary, in an amelioration, a very perceptible general progress. Naturally, if each individual were conscious, if, instead of yielding to this kind of levelling, he resisted in order to transform, transmute, sublimate the elements, the influences and the currents received from others, then the whole would rise to a higher consciousness, much in advance of what was before.

    It was towards that that I was leading without explaining the thing in detail when I spoke of a more and more urgent necessity to make an effort and I meant precisely one day to explain to you that the individual effort you may put in, instead of being merely an individual progress will spread, so to say, and have very important collective results, but I said nothing for months, I wanted to prepare the consciousness of each individual so that they might admit, I should even say, recognise the necessity of a collective individuality.

    It is that which has to be explained now. There is no other reason for this sort of apparent lowering, but it is not really so. It is the spiral movement of progress which necessarily implies that one should travel away from a certain realisation so that it may be made not only wider but also higher. If everyone collaborates consciously and with good will, it will be done more quickly. It was an imperative necessity if the life of the Ashram were to continue. A thing that does not progress, necessarily declines and perishes, and if the Ashram were to last, it had had

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to make a progress in its consciousness and become a living entity. That is all. In the spiral of our progress we are a little away from the line of realisation that we were following for some years but we shall come back to it on a higher level. That is the reason.

     Apparently there may be movements seeming to contradict what I have just told you, but it is always so; for everytime you want to realise something the first difficulty that you meet is the opposition from all that was not active before and now awakes to offer resistance. All that does not want to acquiesce in this change, naturally wakes up and revolts, but that has no importance. It is the same thing as happens in the individual being. When you want to make a progress, the difficulty you wished to conquer increases tenfold in importance and intensity in your consciousness. You have only to persevere. That is all, it will pass away.

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