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THE MOTHER Questions and Answers
3rd February, 1958 SOMETIME ago I had the experience of identification with ^ the animal life. It is a fact that animals do not understand us : their consciousness is so made that we escape them almost entirely. Yet I knew of some familiar animals, cats and dogs, cats particularly, that used tq make a conscious, almost yogic effort to join with us. But generally, when they look at us as we live and act they do not understand us, they do not see us as we are; we are for them a constant puzzle. Only a very small part of their consciousness has a link with us. And it is the same thing when we try to look at’ the supramental world. Between the supramental world and men there is almost the same separation as between men and animals. It is only when the link in the consciousness is established that we shall be able to see; and even then it is only that part of our being which undergoes transformation that will be able to see it as it is, otherwise the supramental world will remain as incomprehensible for us as the human world is for animals. The experience that I had on the third February is a proof of this. Before, my contact with the supramental was individual, subjective, but on the third February I walked there in a concrete way, as concretely as I used to walk formerly in Paris, in a world existing in itself, apart from all subjectivity. This experience is like a bridge thrown between the two worlds. Here is then the experience as I dictated it immediately after : The supramental world exists permanently and I am there permanently in a supramental body. I had the proof of this today when my earth consciousness went there and remained there consciously between 2 and 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Now Page-1 I know that for the two worlds to meet in a constant and conscious relation what I found myself on a huge boat which is a symbolic representation of the place where this work was going on. This boat, as big as a city, was entirely organized and it had been certainly functioning for some time past, for the organization was complete. It is the place for training people meant for the supramental life. These people, or at least a part of their being, had already undergone a supramental transformation because the boat itself, everything in it, was neither material nor subtle physical nor vital nor mental, it was a supramental stuff. The substance itself was of the most material supramental—the supramental substance closest to the physical world, the first that manifests. The light was a mixture of gold and red which made a uniform orange luminous substance. All was like that—the light was like that, the people were like that—all had that colour, although with various shades which made things distinguishable from one another. The general feeling was of a world without shadows; shades were there, but not shadows. The atmosphere was full of joy, quiet, order; all moved on regularly and in silence. And still one could see of the details of an education, a training in all domains by which the people in the boat were being prepared.
This immense ship had just arrived at the shore of the supramental world where the first batches of the people who were destined to be the future inhabitants of this supramental world were to get down. Everything was arranged for this first landing. Of the shore one could see only the place prepared for
Page-2 the landing. A group of beings of a very tall stature were posted on the wharf; they were not human beings and they had never been men. They were neither permanent inhabitants of the supramental world; they were delegated from above and posted there to control and supervise the landing. I was in charge of the whole thing from the very beginning and during all the time. I had myself prepared all the batches of people. I was standing on the boat at the head of the gangway, calling the groups one by one and sending them down to the shore. The tall people who were posted there were passing in review, so to say, those who were to get down, allowing those who were ready and sending back those who were not yet ready and had to continue their training on board the ship. As I was standing there and seeing everybody, the part of my consciousness which came from here became extremely interested, it wanted to see and recognize all the people, see how changed they were and verify those who were immediately taken and those who were to remain and continue their training. After a time while I was busy observing I began to feel that I was pulled back, so that my body might wake up, and I protested in my consciousness saying, "No, no, not yet, not yet, I want to see !" I was seeing and noting with intense interest. Things went on like that until suddenly the clock here struck three and this called me back violently. There was almost a feeling of tumbling down into my body. I came back with a shock but with all the memory intact because I was called back so suddenly. I remained quiet and didn’t move until I recollected the whole experience and retained it.
The objects on the ship were not of the kind that is familiar on earth. For instance, the dress was not made of cloth. Whatever looked like clothes was not fabricated, it was part of their body and made of the same substance which took different forms. That had a kind of plasticity; when a change had to be made, it was done not by an artificial and external means but by an inner working, by a working of consciousness which gave form or appearance to the substance. Life created its own forms. There was only one substance in everything; it was changing the nature of its vibration according to the need or use.
Page-3 Those who were sent back for further training were not of uniform colour; it was as if they had in their body some patches opaque and grayish, of a kind of substance resembling the earthly substance; they were dull as if not entirely permeated by the light, not transformed; it was like that not uniformly but in places. The tall beings on the shore had not the same colour, at least not that shade of orange, they were paler, more transparent. Except for a part of their being, one could see only an outline of their shape. They were very tall and it looked as if they had nothing built or constructed inside (no skeleton), as if they could take a shape according to the need. Only from waist down there was a certain density. Their colour was much paler, with only a little red in it; it was more towards gold or even white. The parts of whitish light were translucent, not positively transparent but less dense, more subtle than the orange substance. When I was called back and while I was saying "not yet", I had each time a quick glimpse of myself (that is of my shape in the supramental world). I was a combination of what these tall people and the people on the boat were. The top of myself, specially the head, was a mere silhouette, its content was whitish with an orange fringe. The more one went down towards the feet the more it became like the people in the boat, i.e. orange; the more one went towards the top the more it was translucent and white, and the red diminished. The silhouette of the head had at its centre a brilliant sun; rays of light came out of it, being the action of the will.
As regards the people I saw on board, I recognised them all. Some were of the Ashram here, some came from elsewhere although I knew them also. I saw all and everybody, but as I knew that I would not remember everyone when I would come back, I decided not to give any name. Also it is not necessary. There were three or four faces very clearly visible and when I saw them I understood the feeling I had here on earth when looking into their eyes : there was such an extraordinary joy in them. The people were mostly young; children were very few, their age ranging about 14
Page-4 people were not there, with a few exceptions. The majority of those who were going down were of middle age, except a few. Already, before -this experience happened some individual cases had been taken up several times in a place where there was an examination of people capable of being supramentalised; then I had some surprises and noted them; even I told it to some. But today those I sent down to the shore I saw very distinctly, they were middle-aged, not young children, nor old people, with a few rare exceptions; this was quite in keeping with what I was expecting. I decided not to say anything, not to mention names. As I didn’t remain till the end it was not possible for me to give an exact picture; the picture was not absolutely clear or complete. I don’t want to say things to some and not to others. I can only say that the point of view, the judgment was based exclusively on the substance of which the people were built, i.e. whether they belonged completely to the supramental world, whether they were made of that substance which was so distinctive. The point of view adopted is not moral or psychological. Probably the substance of which their bodies were made was the outcome of some inner law or movement which at that time was not in question. At least it is very clear that the values are different. When I came back, along with the remembrance of the experience I knew that the supramental world was permanent, that my presence there was permanent and that only a missing link was necessary to make the connexion in the consciousness and in the substance, and it is that link which is being built. I had then the impression (it remained for a pretty long time, almost a whole day) of an extreme relativity,—no, not exactly that,—the impression that the relation of this world with the other brought a complete change in the point of view from which things are to be valued or appreciated. That point of view had nothing mental in it and it gave a strange inner feeling, that many things we consider good or bad were really not so. It was very clear that all depended on the capacity of things, on their ability to translate the supramental world or be in relation with it. It was so completely different, at times even so contrary to our Page-5 ordinary appreciation. I remember one small thing which we usually consider bad; how odd it is to find that it was very good indeed. And other things which we consider important are really quite unimportant: be it like this or like that, it is of no importance. What is very clear is that our appreciation of what is divine and anti-divine is not correct. I even laughed at certain things…. Our usual feeling of what is anti-divine appears artificial, based on something not living, not true,—besides, what we call fife here did not seem living in comparison with that world,—at any rate the feeling should be based on our relation as between the two worlds, whether things are making this relation more easy or more difficult. Our appreciation then of what brings us near the Divine or separates us from the Divine would be quite different. In people also I saw that what helps them to become supramental or hinders them is very different from what the usual moral notions imagine. I felt how ridiculous we are. A few days after this experience, I had the occasion to say certain things which are in a way the effect in my consciousness of the experience of the third of February. This is what I said : Everyone carries with himself in his atmosphere what Sri Aurobindo named as "Censors" : they are in some sort permanent delegates of the hostile forces. Their role is to criticise without pity each act, each thought, the smallest movement of the consciousness and to put you in front of the most hidden springs of your behaviour, to bring out the least inferior vibration accompanying what may appear as your purest and highest acts.
There is no question of morality here. These gentlemen are not moralising agents, although they know very well how to make use of morality. And when they deal with a scrupulous consciousness, they can harrass it without mercy, whispering to it every moment: "You ought not to have done this, you ought not to have done that, you ought rather to have done this other thing, said that thing, now you have spoilt everything, you have committed an irreparable blunder". They may even take possession of the consciousness of some people : you drive away the
Page-6 thought, and lo, there it comes back after two minutes, you drive it away once more, it returns always to hammer you. Each time I meet these gentlemen, I welcome them : they compel you to an absolute sincerity, they hunt out the subtlest hypocrisy. And they are intelligent ! with an intelligence that infinitely surpasses ours; they know everything, they know how to turn against you the least thought, the least argument and the the least action with a truly marvellous subtlety. Nothing escapes them. But what gives these beings the adverse colour is that first of all and above all they are defeatists. They present the picture to you always in its darkest tint, and if necessary they distort your own intentions. They are truly instruments of sincerity. But they forget always one thing, wilfully, something which they cast far behind, as if it did not exist, the Divine Grace. They forget the prayer, the spontaneous prayer that springs all on a sudden out of the depth of your being as an intense call and which brings down the grace and changes the course of things. Each time you have made a progress, passed on to a higher plane, they place you in the presence of all the acts of your past life and in a few months, a few days or even a few minutes they make you pass again all your examinations but on a higher level. It is not enough to brush aside the thought, saying "Oh, I know", and throw a kind of mantle in order not to see. You must face and conquer, keep your consciousness full of the light, without the least trembling, the least vibration in your cells of the body, without saying anything, and the attack will melt away. But our conceptions of Good and Evil are so ridiculous, and so ridiculous our idea of what is near the Divine and what is far from the Divine ! The experience of the other day (3rd February) has been revelatory to me, I came out of it completely changed. I understood suddenly a lot of things of the past, actions and portions of my fife that had remained inexplicable.
During all the time the experience lasted, one hour,—one hour of that time is long—I was in a state of extraordinary gaiety, almost a state of intoxication. The difference between the two states of consciousness is such that when you are in one, the
Page-7 other seems unreal like a dream. When I came back, I was at first struck by the futility of the life here; our petty conceptions of here below seem so ridiculous, so comic… We say of some people that they are mad, but their madness is perhaps a great wisdom, from the supramental point of view, and their behaviour is perhaps nearer to the truth of things. I do not speak of the obscurely mad, those who had an accident to their brain, but of many others who are incomprehensible, the luminously mad—these , sought to cross the frontier too quickly and the rest did not follow. When our world is looked at from the supramental consciousness, the dominant trait is a feeling of foreignness, of artificiality —an absurd world because it is artificial. It is only when one has gone there consciously, with the consciousness that generally operates here that this difference appears in all its enormity : everything here except that which happens within and in the depths, appeared to me absolutely artificial. Thus in order to cover ourselves we are obliged to procure clothes, stitch garments, put them on ourselves when we want to wear them. In the same way for nourishment we need take things from outside and pour them into the body. For everything our life is artificial.
A life true, spontaneous, sincere as it is in the supramental is a welling up of things because of the fact of the conscious will within. The will acts directly on the substance and the substance obeys it: it accords with what we decide as to what should be. And if you have the power and knowledge you can obtain what you want and if you do not have them, no artificial means will procure what you desire. In the supramental world, if, for example, you wish to cover yourself, the substance in which you live immediately takes the form of a garment to cover you. If you want to move from one place to another, your will is sufficient to transport you without the need of a conveyance, of any artificial means. Thus the boat of my experience had no need of -any machine to move it; it was the will that moulded the substance according to its need. When one had to land, the landing place formed there of itself. When I wanted to land the groups, those
Page-8 who had to land knew it automatically without any necessity of my telling them a word, and they came each in his turn. Everything was done in silence, there was no need to talk in order to be understood. But the silence itself on the ship did not give that impression of artificiality which it does here. Here when you want to be silent, you must hold your tongue; silence is what is contrary to sound. But there the silence is vibrant, living, active, comprehending and comprehensible. The absurd thing here is that you have to use all kinds of artificial means. Any fool can have more power if he has more means to procure the necessary artifices. But in the supramental world the more one is conscious and in relation with the truth of things, the more the will possesses power over the substance. This power is a true power. If you want a dress, you must have the power to make it, a real power. If you do not have the power, well, you remain naked. No artifice is there to supply the want of power. Here below not once in a million is authority the expression of something true. Everything is tremendously stupid. Due to the accident of birth, of position, you are in a more or less high situation, or have a more or less comfortable life, not because it is the spontaneous, natural and sincere expression of your way of being and your inner need, but because the accident of the circumstances of life has put you in contact with these things. None of the values of the ordinary physical life are based on truth. There is a kind of dislocation between the appearance and the inside, and the material appearance does not express at all the deeper truth of things. A man with no worth whatsoever may happen to be in a very high position and a man who has wonderful capacities of creation and organisation may be found drudging along in a narrow and lower position, whereas he should have been a wholly useful person if the world were sincere.
It is this artificiality, this insincerity, this complete want of truth that appeared to me in a shocking manner and I asked myself how in such a false world, there could be true appreciations. Now I know that our way of evaluating things, our scale of values has no relation to the values of the supramental World.
Page-9 When I came down,—came down, that is a way of saying, for it is neither up nor down nor within nor without, it is…somewhere— it took me some time, before I could readjust myself. I even remember to have said to someone : "Now, we are going to fall back again into our usual stupidity." But instead of being gloomy, morose, revolted, unsatisfied one has rather the feeling of so laughable a ridiculousness that for days I was seized with a mad laughter when I saw people and things, a laughter absolutely inexplicable to everyone excepting myself, because of the ridiculousness of the situation. When I invited you, sometime ago, to a voyage into the unknown, a voyage of adventures, I did not know that I was saying so truly and I can promise to those who are ready to try the adventure that they will make very interesting discoveries. These things on the surface are not dramatic. They appear to me more and more like bubbles of soap, particularly since February 3. There are people who come to me desperate, in tears, in what they call their terrible moral sufferings. When I see them in this condition, I displace a little the needle in my consciousness which contains you and when they go back they find themselves completely consoled. It is just like the needle of a compass; you turn the needle a little in your consciousness and it is all finished. Naturally, the thing comes back afterwards, because of habit. These are nothing but bubbles of soap. I also knew suffering, but there was always a part in me which knew how to keep behind, apart.
The only thing in the world that still appears to me intolerable, now, consists of all the physical deteriorations, the physical sufferings, the ugliness, the inability to express the capacity of beauty that is in every being. But that also will be conquered one day. There will come one day also the power to displace the needle a little. Only one has to rise further up in consciousness; the more one wants to descend into matter, the more one must rise in consciousness. That will need time. Sri Aurobindo was surely right when he spoke of some centuries.
Page-10 The Buddhist teaching never tells you that to live well, to think well is the result of effort or sacrifice; on the contrary it is the delightful state which cures all suffering. In those times, at the time of Buddha to live the spiritual life was a delight, a bliss, a most happy condition, that which liberates you from all troubles of the world, all sufferings, all cares, which makes you happy, satisfied, content. It is the materialism of modern times that has made of spiritual effort a painful effort and a sacrifice, a cruel renouncing of all the so-called joys of life. This emphasis on the exclusive reality of the physical world, the physical pleasures, the physical enjoyments, the physical possessions is the result of all the materialistic tendency of human civilisation. That was unthinkable in ancient times. On the contrary, retirement, concentration, freedom from all material cares, consecration to spiritual delight, that was indeed happiness. From that point of view evidently humanity is far from having made a progress. Persons born in the world at centres of materialistic civilisation have in their subconscient this frightful thing that material realities alone are real and that to be occupied with things that are not material shows a spirit of marvellous self-sacrifice, an almost sublime effort. Not to be preoccupied from morning till evening and from evening till morning with all the little physical satisfactions, physical pleasures, physical sensations, physical engagements is to give evidence of a wonderful spirit. You do not notice the thing, but the whole modern civilisation is based on this conception : "Ah, what one touches, one is sure that it is true, what one sees, one is sure that that is true, what one eats, one is sure that one has eaten it, but all the rest—pooh ! we are not sure that they are not vain dreams and we do not give up the real for the unreal, the object for the shadow. After all, what are you going to gain ? Some dreams! But when you have the solid farthings in your pocket, you are sure you have them there". And that is everywhere, below everything. You scratch a Page-11 little the appearances and in your consciousness, it is there, and you hear from time to time this whisper within you : "Take care, don’t be a dupe". After all, it is lamentable. We are told that evolution is progressive, it follows an ascending curve, a spiral; I have no doubt that what is called comfort in modern cities is much superior to the comfort of the cave man, but in ancient history people used to speak always of prevision, prophetic spirit, foretelling events through visions, life’s intimacy with something subtler, which had for the simple people of that age a very concrete reality. Now in our beautiful cities that are so comfortable, when something is to be condemned, what is it that you say : "It is a dream, it is imagination". And precisely if a man lives in his inner perception, people look at him askance and ask if he is of a sound mind. If a man does not pass his time in amassing money or in increasing his comfort and well-being or in securing a good situation or becoming an important personage, if a man is not like that, people ask whether he is sane. And all that is to such a degree the very stuff of the atmosphere, the content of the air that one breathes, the trend of thoughts that one receives from others that it appears to be quite natural. One does not feel that it is a grotesque monstrosity. To become a little more conscious of oneself, to enter into contact with the life behind the appearances does not appear to you the very best of wealth. When you are seated in a comfortable arm-chair, in front of a well-furnished table and you fill your stomach with delicious foods, that appears to you certainly much more concrete and much more interesting. And if you look at the day that has passed, take stock of your day, if you had some material advantage, some kind of pleasure, a physical satisfaction you mark it as a good day, but if you had learnt a good lesson of life, received a blow on your nose telling you that you were a fool, you would not thank the Grace, you say : "ah, it is not always a fun to five !" When I read ancient texts, I have precisely the impression Page-12 that from the inner standpoint, from the standpoint of true life, we have terribly gone backward, and for the sake of acquiring a few ingenious machines and thus giving an encouragement to physical laziness, for the sake of acquiring instruments and apparatus that economise our effort to live, we have renounced the reality of the inner life. It is that sense we have lost and we need to make an effort in order to think of learning the sense of life, the fundamental reason for existence, the goal towards which we must move, towards which all life moves whether you want it or not. One step towards that goal, ah, much effort is needed to do that ! And generally one thinks of it only when the external circumstances are not pleasant. How far are we from the time when the shepherd, was not going to school, but looking after his flock at night under the stars could read by the stars what was about to come to pass, communicate with something that expressed itself through Nature and had the sense of the deeper beauty and the peace that simple life gives. It is unfortunate that one has to give up something in order to have another. When I speak to you of the inner life, I am far from being opposed to all modern inventions, not in the least, but how much these inventions have made us artificial and foolish, how much we have lost the sense of true beauty, how much we burden ourselves with useless necessities.
Perhaps the time is come to Continue the ascension in the curve of the spiral and with all that this knowledge of Matter has brought to us, we shall be able to give to our spiritual progress a more solid basis, and strong with what we have learnt of the secrets of material Nature, we shall be able to join the two extremes and find again the supreme Reality at the centre of the atom.
Page-13 One can say that all things exist from all eternity and therefore simultaneously; but this eternal, .simultaneous, total existence is as it were the property, the possession of a Consciousness who might take a pleasure in going through his domains, find a delight in a voyage that is almost infinite, in any case indefinite, across his dominions and so move from discovery to discovery, discovering things that existed already, existed since long ago but which the Supreme had never visited. And the road he follows in his discovery might be a road wholly free, unexpected, unforeseen, according to the choice of the moment; for although his dominion is there from eternity, existing for ever, he might visit it in quite an unforeseeable way and thus open the door to all relations and all possibilities. It is also a discovery of himself, for this domain is himself, and a discovery might be made by immediate decisions, without a preconceived plan as the mind would do, with all the joy of a complete freedom and of the unforeseen at each second, an eternal voyage in his own being. Everyting is absolutely determined, because everything is from all eternity and yet the road traversed may be itself absolutely free and absolutely unforeseen. There is thus the simultaneous existence of worlds that do not seem to have any relation with each other and which nevertheless coexist; they are discovered gradually and give the impression of a new creation. If you look at things in this way, you will easily understand that along with the physical world as we know it, with all its imperfections and limitations, all its ignorance, there are other worlds existing in their own zones having a nature so different from our own that they are for us almost inexistent, for we have no relation with them. But when the great eternal voyage passes from this world into that, then the link will necessarily be created by the fact of this passage of the eternal Consciousness, and the two worlds will gradually come into contact with each other.
This is truly what is happening now and we can say with certainty that the supramental world already exists but the time is come for the Supreme Consciousness to make it the object
Page-14 of his voyage and then gradually a conscious link will be formed between this world and that and they will be put into a new relation with each other by the very fact of this new direction of the voyage. This is an explanation worth as much as many others. It is perhaps more easy to understand for people who are not metaphysicians. It satisfies me at least. There is therefore no opposition between determinism and freedom. The Great Voyager chooses at every minute the track of his voyage; therefore it is an absolute freedom of choice and it is that which gives to the unfolding universe the element of the unforeseen and the possibility of change since the Supreme is entirely free to change his track if it so pleases him. It is, therefore absolute liberty. But all is there, and since all is there, all is determined absolutely,—that exists ever and always, but that is discovered in a quite unforeseen way. It is in this discovery that there is liberty. You are taking a walk and all on a sudden you find it amusing to go by this way instead of that, then your track is quite new, but the things towards which you move were always there, they existed already, they were therefore determined, but not so your discovery. In reality, a consciousness identified with the supreme Consciousness can alone have the impression of absolute freedom. So long as you are not one with the supreme Consciousness, you have necessarily the impression, the feeling or the notion that you are under the law of a higher Will, but as soon as you are identified with this Will you are perfectly free.
That is what Sri Aurobindo has always said : "It is in the union with the Supreme that true freedom is realised."
Page-15
It happens sometimes that one gets ideas all on a sudden. From where do they come and how do they act in the head ? From where they come ? From the mental atmosphere. Why do they come ? You may meet them on the way as you meet a passer-by on a public place. Most often it is that. You happen to be on a route where ideas circulate and you fall upon this idea or that which then passes through your head. Evidently, people who are accustomed to meditation and concentration, to whom intellectual problems have quite a concrete and tangible reality draw together concomitant ideas by the concentration of their mind and a company of ideas is formed which they organise so as to solve a problem or clarify a question. But for that one must be accustomed to mental concentration and have a philosophical spirit; the ideas are then living entities having their own life and you organise them on the mental chess-board like pawns in a game of chess. You take them, move them, arrange them, organise them; you make a coherent whole with the ideas which are independent individual entities having affinities among themselves and organising themselves according to their inner laws. But for that you must have the habit of meditation, reflection, analysis, deduction and mental organisation. Otherwise, if you live as they come, then it is absolutely as if you were in a public place : there are roads and on the roads individuals come and go and if you are at the crossways you catch what is passing along—sometimes even you catch ideas that have no relation to each other, so much so that if you were to write down what passes by your head you would make an admirable cock-and-bull story. We said once upon a time that one could usefully try a little game, namely, to ask someone suddenly, "what are you thinking of?" Very rarely will he be able to answer clearly :"I was just thinking of this thing". If he answers in this way, you will have the proof that he is a reflective person. Otherwise, the usual spontaneous answer is : "Ah, I do not know".
All who have done physical exercises in an ordered and organised way know, for example, the different muscles that
Page-16 must be moved to produce a particular movement, the best way of moving them and how to obtain the maximum effect with the minimum loss of energy. Well, it is the same thing with regard to thought. If you train yourself methodically, a time comes when you can follow a reasoning in the most objective way, as one would project an image on a screen. You are able to deduce one idea from another and follow the normal, logical, organised line of argument with the minimum loss of time from the beginning of the argument to its conclusion. Once you have the habit of doing that, as you have the habit of moving your muscles in a logical way as they must move to obtain a given result, well then, you have clear thinking. Otherwise, the movements of thought, intellectual movements remain vague, imprecise, floating; suddenly something comes up, one does not know why, and another thing comes to contradict it, that also one does not know why. And when you try to organise your thoughts clearly so as to note exactly the relation of one idea to another, the first time that you do it, you get a nice headache, you have the impression that you are groping for your way in a very dark virgin forest. The speculative mind needs discipline to develop it. And if you do not discipline it methodically, you live in the clouds as it were; it is this that happens to the majority of human beings who are able to lodge in their head the most contradictory ideas without being troubled in the least. If you do not make an effort to organise clearly your head you run at least, the risk of having no control over your thoughts. Besides, often you have to come down to action before you can begin to note the value of what you think; or if it is not to action, at least to your feelings you have to come down. You perceive suddenly that you have feelings that are not quite desirable and then you find out that you do not know at all how to control your thought. Page-17
Do people have bad thoughts, because they have no mastery over their mind? There may be many reasons, indeed there are many reasons. It may be the result of a bad nature. If these people themselves have ugly feelings, these ugly feelings may be the cause of the ugly thoughts. Or it is the contrary : perhaps they are open to all kinds of suggestions coming from outside : these suggestions enter into them and gradually produce bad feelings and then they get into a struggle, precisely because they are not master of themselves. When these influences rise to the surface, instead of controlling them and refusing those that are undesirable, people allow them all to enter as they like; the doors are wide open. You are bathing in all kinds of things, good, bad, indifferent, luminous, dark, all that is there, but the consciousness of each should act as a filter. You must receive nothing that you do not want to receive, you must think nothing that you do not want to think, and above all you must not allow the thoughts to change into feelings and actions without a formal sanction. After all, that is the fundamental reason for physical existence. Each person is an instrument for controlling a certain set of vibrations which represents his own field of work, each one should receive only those that conform to the divine plan and refuse the rest. But there is not one in a thousand who does that. One does a little of it more or less consciously by the friction and pressure of circumstances and the environment, but as for doing it voluntarily, certainly there are very few people who are capable of it. And it is not sufficient to do it voluntarily, you must do it in the right way and with the true consciousness, which is still more exceptional.
Control over one’s thought ! Who has control over his thoughts. Only he who has trained himself to that, who has endeavoured for it from his very childhood.
Page-18 The entire scale is there beginning from the total absence of control. And the immense majority of people are harrassed by thoughts which they cannot get rid of and which possess them literally, nor have they the power to close the door of their active consciousness to these thoughts. It is the thoughts that govern them, dominate them, not they their thoughts. One hears everyday people complaining : "Oh, this thought is all the while coming to me again and again and I am unable to get rid of it". And then they are assailed by all sorts of things from anxiety to bad will, fear—thoughts that express fear are most harrassing; you try to send them away, they come back like rubber and fall upon you. Who is it that has control over his thought. It requires years of labour for that; it is such a great habit. Next, to come to this thing which is not complete control yet, but already a step in advance, namely, to be capable of removing all movements in the head, as if with the back of your hand you put aside the vibrations and the surface of the mind becomes smooth. Everything stops. It is like a book that opens on a white page…almost a material whiteness…white ! Try a little in yourself, you will see, it is very interesting. Then one can follow in one’s head the place where there is the small point that dances. I have seen Sri Aurobindo doing it in the head of someone, someone who was precisely complaining of being harrassed by ideas. It was as if his hand came, seized the little dark point that was dancing, gently as one takes an insect between one’s fingers and threw it away, and then, that’s all, it is finished…. Everything became immobile, tranquil, luminous. I have seen also a case when a person came to him with an acute pain somewhere : "Oh, I have a pain, I have a pain there !" He said nothing and kept silent, he was looking at the person. I saw, I saw some thing like a hand, a subtle physical hand that came, took hold of the little point that was dancing disorderly, Page-19 took it and threw it away…and there, all went well. The person exclaimed; ‘* Oh, but my pain is gone !" * * *
Intellectual Theories 1.2- All this intellectual argumentation comes from a domain where you are not accustomed to go, which is not familiar to you. In fact it is a very special domain and very foreign to action or any kind of practical realisation whatever. It always seemed to me quite possible to take any idea and use it as the starting-point of an argument and through intellectual logic come to prove that that idea is quite true simply by the force of argumentation. It is well worth noticing that action and speculation are two domains of human activity that usually find it difficult to be together at the same time in the consciousness; it is very rare indeed for a man of a very well developed speculative mind ever to become a man of action or for a man of action to be at ease in intellectual speculation.
When you have a tendency that is essentially practical and turned to realising things, you have always the impression that all these speculations, arguments, deductions are an occupation more or less interesting to idle people—I do not wish to say it very strongly, because that will not be appreciated by the intellectuals. These things always appeared to me as a gymnastic, very interesting from the point of view of mental development, but have not much practical result. Now, if you hear people of an abstract mind, they will tell you that physical gymnastics is an absolutely useless occupation that gives no practical result. "What is the use of doing gymnastics ?" Simply to move your muscles. And why should we not move the muscles of the mind as you do the muscles of the body ?" The two arguments have an equal value.
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For me the solution lies elsewhere. As soon as you are convinced that there is a living and real truth which seeks to express itself in an objective universe, the only thing that seems to have any importance and value is to come into contact with this truth, to identify oneself with it as perfectly as possible and to become nothing but a means to express it, to make it more and more living and tangible so that it may be manifested more and more perfectly. All theories, all principles, all means are more or less good according to the power they have to express that truth, and as one advances on the way, if the limits of the world of ignorance are passed, one sees that it is the totality of the manifestation, its wholeness, its integrality that is necessary for the expression of the truth, that nothing can be cut out and nothing is more important or less important. The only thing that seems necessary is the harmonisation of all and that each thing must be at its place in its true relation with the others so that the total Unity may be manifested harmoniously. If you come down from that level, as it seems to me, you understand nothing, all arguments are of equal worth in narrowness and limitation that take away all their real value. Each thing at its place, in harmony with all the rest, then one can begin to understand and live. One has the impression that a single movement, however small it may be, however unimportant it may appear has more value than the most wonderful arguments, if it is in agreement with this truth.
Let one single drop of light shine in you, it will be more effective for dissolving obscurity than the most beautiful discourses of the world upon what the light is and what it can do.
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inner Realisation is the key to outer Realisation When the adverse forces want to attack those who are around me and when they do not succeed in making them openly hostile to Sri Aurobindo’s work or in turning them against me personally, they proceed in the matter always in the same way, with the same argument: "You may have all the inner realisations you like, they say, the most beautiful experiences possible within the four walls of the Ashram, but on the outward plane your – life is spoilt, lost. There is an abyss that you will never fill up between the inner experience and the concrete realisation in the world". That is the argument number one of the adverse forces. I know it, for millions of years I have been hearing the same thing repeated and every time I have been unmasking it. It is a He, it is the He. Everything that tends to estabfish a divorce between the Earth and the Spirit, is good for them, anything that separates the inner experience from the divine realisation in the world. But it is the contrary that is true, it is the inner reaHsation which is the key to the outward realisation. How can you expect to know the true thing that you have to reuse in the world so long as you do not possess the truth of your being. Page-22
Perfect surrender Three typical modes of total self-giving to the Divine : (1) To prostrate at His feet giving up all pride in perfect humility. (2) To lay down one’s being before Him, open entirely one’s body from head to foot, as one opens a book, spreading out the centres so as to make all their movements visible in complete sincerity that allows nothing to remain hidden. (3) To nestle in His arms, melt in Him in a loving and absolute trust. These movements may be accompanied with three formulas or any of them according to the case : (1) Let Thy Will be done arid not mine. (2) As Thou wiliest, as Thou wiliest. (3) I am Thine for eternity. Generally, when these movements are done rightly, they are followed by a perfect identification, the dissolution of the ego bringing in a sublime felicity. * * * Only those years that are passed uselessly make you grow old. A year spent uselessly is a year during which no progress has been accomplished, no growth in consciousness has been achieved, no further step has been taken towards perfection. Consecrate your life to the realisation of something higher and broader than yourself and you will never feel the weight of the passing years. * * * If you are not satisfied with what you are, take advantage of the Divine’s help and change. If you have no courage to change, submit to your destiny and be quiet. But to go on complaining about the condition in which you are and do nothing to change it is sheer waste of time and energy. The cure from all difficulties can come only when the egoistic concentration upon one’s desires and conveniences ceases. Page-23
Last night I had a vision of what the supramental world would be like if the people were not sufficiently prepared. The confusion that now exists on earth is nothing in comparison with what may happen. Just imagine any strong will possessing the power to transform matter according to its liking! If the sense of collective unity did not grow in proportion to the growth of the power, the resulting conflict would be yet more acute and chaotic than all our material conflicts. 15-2-1958 * * * The ego thinks of what it wants and has not. That is its constant preoccupation. The soul is aware of what it is receiving and lives in endless gratitude. * * * When you are in need of an external change, it means that you do not progress internally. For he who progresses internally can live always under the same external conditions; these constantly reveal to him new truths. All outward change must be the spontaneous and inevitable expression of an inner transformation. Normally, all amelioration of the conditions of physical life should be the outward flowering of a progress realised within. 29-3-1958 *
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Page-24 There are two complementary aspects of the liberating action of the Divine Grace upon earth among men. These two aspects are equally indispensable, but are not equally appreciated. The sovereign immutable peace that liberates from anxiety, tension and suffering. The dynamic all-powerful progress that liberates from fetters, bondages and inertia. The peace is universally appreciated and recognised as divine, but the progress is welcomed only by those whose aspiration is intense and courageous.
Reprinted from the Bulletin of Physical Education, April, 1958. Page-25
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