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THE MOTHER Questions and Answers
Questions and Answers
The Real Hell (Commentary on the Dhammapada) A S in all these teachings, there are several ways of under-standing. The external way is quite common. In all moral principles, always the same thing is said. This Niraya, for example, of which the Dhammapada speaks, which is taken by some as a kind of hell where you are punished for your sins, has another meaning also. The true meaning of Niraya is that special kind of atmosphere which you create around you when you act in contradiction not with external moral rules or social principles, but in contradiction with the inner law of your being, the particular truth which is your own and which must govern all the movements of your consciousness and all actions of your body. The inner law, the truth of the being is the divine presence in each human being; that must be the master and guide of our life.
When you form the habit of listening to this inner law, of obeying and following it, trying more and more to let it guide your life, you create around you an atmosphere of truth and peace and harmony, which naturally reacts on the circumstances and forms, so to say, the atmosphere in which you live. When you are a being of justice, truth, harmony, compassion, understanding, perfect good will, then this inner attitude, the more it is sincere, the more it is entire, the more it reacts upon the external circumstances, not that it diminishes necessarily life’s difficulties, but it gives to the difficulties a new sense and that enables you to face them with a new force and a new wisdom, whereas, the man, the human being who follows his impulses, obeys his desires,
Page-2 is little embarrassed by scruples, who has come to live in complete cynicism, mocks at the effect his life might have on others and the more or less bad consequences of his acts, such a man creates an atmosphere of ugliness, egoism, conflict, bad will that necessarily acts more and more on his own consciousness and gives it a harshness in life which in the end becomes a constant torment. It is understood, of course, that this does not mean that the man will not succeed in what he undertakes or that he will not be able to get what he desires. These external advantages can disappear only when there is at the core of the being a spark of sincerity that persists and makes him worthy of misfortune. If you see a bad man becoming unfortunate and miserable, you must immediately respect him. That means that the flame of inner sincerity is not altogether extinguished and something yet reacts against his bad actions. This in the end leads us to the conclusion that one must never, never judge by appearances and that all judgments that you form based on external circumstances are always necessarily false judgments. To have a glimpse of the Truth, you must at least take one step backward in your consciousness, enter a little more deeply into your being and try to see the play of forces behind the appearances and the divine presence behind the play of forces. * * * Be benevolent if you want to have a good digestion. (Commentary on the Dhammapada)
One advice given here is to be always benevolent. You must not take it as an advice of the commonplace type. It says quite an interesting thing, very interesting even : I comment on it, "Be benevolent and you will be free from suffering, be always contented and happy, you will radiate your quiet happiness".
Page-3 Be always kind, come out of all bitter criticism, see no more evil in everything, obstinately force yourself to see nothing but the kind Presence of the divine Grace and you will see not only within you but around you, an atmosphere of quiet joy, peaceful trust, luminous hope spreading more and more and not only you will feel happy and quiet yourself but the major part of your bodily disorders will disappear. It is quite remarkable that the digestive functions are extremely sensitive to a critical, unkind, sour attitude, a harsh judgment. Nothing more than that and the functioning of digestion is disturbed. And it is a vicious circle : the more the digestive function is disturbed, the more you become unkind, critical, disgusted with life and things and persons. So you do not come out of it. There is only one cure, namely, to deliberately come out of this attitude, to refuse absolutely to have it and to force on yourself, through constant control, a willed attitude of thorough kindliness. Try and you will see that you are much better in health. * * *
Is it right to see images when one meditates, as for example, a door opening? Everything is right, if it has a result. Whatever the means it is all right. Why ? The images you speak of are not necessarily ridiculous; they are mental images, and if they produce a result they are quite appropriate, if they give you an experience, they are appropriate.
Everyone has his special procedure. Some may have imageries that help them; some, on the contrary, have a more abstract spirit and see ideas only, others again, they who live more in their sensations and feelings, have rather psychological movements, movements of inner feeling and sensation; that depends on each one. Those who have an active, a "form-making" mind, are
Page-4 particularly those who see images, but everybody does not experience tie same thing. Generally, it is more often a sensation, a feeling than an image. When, for example, I ask you to descend into yourself, some will concentrate on a sensation, but others will have the impression of going down into a well and these have absolutely the image’of steps descending into a dark and deep well and they descend more and more, more and more, and sometimes they do arrive at a door : they sit down before the door with the will to enter and sometimes the door opens, then they enter and see something like a hall or a room or a grotto, and from there if they continue they can arrive at another door and again stop, and with an effort this door also opens and you can go farther and if you do it with sufficient persistence and can continue the experience, there comes a moment when you find yourself before a door which has a special quality of solidity or solemnity and with a great effort of concentration the door opens and you enter into a chamber of light; then you have the experience of the contact of your soul…I do not see what is there bad in having images.
But it is only an imagination, is it not, Mother ? Imagination ? What is an imagination ? You can imagine nothing that does not exist in the universe. It is impossible to imagine something that does not exist somewhere. The only thing is that you do not put your imagination in its place, or you give it virtues and qualities that it has not or you explain it otherwise than by a good explanation. But whatever you imagine exists somewhere, the only thing is to know where and to put it in its right place.
Naturally, if having imagined that you were before a door, you thought that it was really a physical door that is within your body, then it would be an error; but if you note that it is a mental form taken by your effort for concentration, that is quite correct.
Page-5 if you take a walk in the mental world, you will find it full of forms like that, all kinds of forms which have no material reality but which exist perfectly well in the mental world. You cannot think strongly of anything without your thought taking a form. Imagination is a power of formation. In fact, those who have no imagination are the people who do not create forms in the mental plane, who cannot give a concrete power to their thought. Imagination is a very powerful means of action. For example, if you have a pain somewhere and if you can imagine that you are making it disappear or removing it or destroying it with the help of some images, well, you succeed perfectly well. The story is told of a person who was losing her hair in a fantastic way and was threatened with baldness in a few weeks. Then someone told her, "Just imagine, when you do your hair, that they are growing and will grow very quickly. And the person while combing her hair was always saying, "Oh, my hair is growing, oh, it is growing very quickly !" And in fact, that is what happened. But what people generally do is to say, "Ah, all my hairs are falling and I am getting bald. It is sure, that is going to happen". Evidently that is what does happen.
What is to be done to discipline the imagination ? What is vaguely called imagination is a very complex, varied thing.
It is perhaps the capacity to see and record, to note the forms that are in one mental domain or another. There are artistic domains, literary domains, poetical domains, domains of action, scientific domains all belonging to the mind, not the higher or very abstract mind, but a mind which is above the physical mind and which, without our knowing it, constantly pours itself out through the individual and collective mind to manifest in action. Page-6 Some persons, because of a special capacity, are in relation with these domains and they take up one of these formations that are there, hold to them and give them an expression. This power of expression is different in different people, but those who have the capacity to open themselves to these domains, to see there and draw these forms to themselves and express them whether in literature, in painting, in action or in the sciences are, to the degree of their power of expression, great talents or geniuses. There are higher geniuses. They are those who can open themselves to a higher region, to a higher force that passes through the mental levels and takes form in some human mind and manifests in the world as a new truth, a new philosophical system, a new spiritual teaching; then you have the works, as well as the actions of great beings who come to take birth on earth. It is an imagination that might be called an imagination of the Truth. These higher forces, when they descend into earth’s atmosphere, take forms that are living, active, powerful and spread upon the world and prepare new times. These two kinds of imagination are what one might call higher imaginations.
To come down again to a more ordinary level, everyone has in himself, in a greater or lesser measure, the capacity to give a form to his mental activity and to use this form either in ordinary activities or to create and realise something. We are always all the while creating images, creating forms. We send them into the atmosphere without even knowing that we are doing it. They go about, pass from one to another, they meet companions, sometimes associate together and live happily together, sometimes they come into conflict and there are battles, for often, very often, there is in these mental imaginations an element of will that seeks to realise itself and as each one sends out his formation so that it may act and things happen as he desires, that makes a general confusion. If our eyes were open to the vision of all these forms in the atmosphere we would see very astonishing things, battle-fields, waves, onsets, withdrawals of a large number of small mental entities that are constantly thrown into the air and that always try to realise themselves. All these formations have one common urge, the will to materialise, to realise themselves physically, and as
Page-7 they are innumerable, there is not sufficient room upon earth for all of them to be able to manifest themselves; so they push one another, elbow one another; we try to push out those that do not agree with us or even we form armies that march in good order, always to take all available place in space and time; and it is a very small place in comparison with the innumerable quantity of creations. There are those that make formations without knowing it, — everybody, — and who are constantly hustled from one thing to another, who hope, want, desire, are disappointed, sometimes satisfied, sometimes in despair, because they have no control or mastery over these things. But the beginning of wisdom is to see oneself thinking, to look at this phenomenon and to perceive this constant projection into the atmosphere of small living entities that try to manifest themselves; all that occurs in the mental atmosphere that we carry in us. Once we see and observe, we can then begin to sift, that is to say, drive away what is not in agreement with our will or our highest aspiration, allowing to manifest only those formations which can help us to progress, to grow normally. That is the control of active thought. How often you sit down and see your thought begin to form into images, narrate a story; and when you are a little expert, not only do you see the story of what you would like to happen in life, in your own life unrolling itself, but you can cut down one thing, add a detail, perfect your work, make a fine story in which everything agrees with your best aspiration, and once you have made a construction harmonious, complete, as perfect as you can, then you open your hands and let the bird fly. And if it is well done, it ends always by realising itself. And one does not know that.
But the thing realises itself in course of time, sometimes long after; then when you have forgotten your story, when you no more remember to have told it to yourself and you have changed much, you think of other things, you make other stories and the previous one interests you no more, and if you are not very attentive, when the result of the first story comes, you are far away from it, you do not remember at all that it was the result of your own
Page-8 story. That is why it is so important to control oneself, because if there are within you multiple and contradictory wills, — not only wills, but tendencies, trends, planes of life that are opposed to each other, that makes battles in your life. For example, when you are on the highest level, you make a fine story and send it out into the world, but on the next day or perhaps on the very day, perhaps sometimes after, you have come down into a much more material level and the things up there appear a little.. .fairy-tale like, unreal and you begin to make formations very concrete, very useful and they are not always very pretty and those too go abroad. I knew persons who had in their nature sides so opposite, so contradictory that one day they may make a formation that is magnificent, luminous, powerful, effective and the next day, a formation defeatist, dark, black, a formation of despair, — and then both fly away. And I could follow under the circumstances the beautiful thing that was realising itself and the dark thing that was demolishing what the other had made as it realised itself. Things happen like that in the general lines of life, as well as in the little details. All that, because you do not see yourself thinking, because you believe you are slaves of your contradictory movements, because you say, "Oh, today, I do not feel well. Oh, today things appear sad", and you say that as if it were an inevitable fatality. But if you go back one step or if you get up one rung, you can look at all these things, put them in their place, retain, destroy or drive away that which you do not want and put all your force of imagination into those that you do want and which agree with your highest aspiration. That is what I call controlling one’s imagination. It is very interesting. When you learn to do that and when you do it regularly, time no longer hangs heavy on you.
And instead of being like a cork floating on the waves, cast about helplessly here and there by each wave, without defence, you become a bird that opens its wings, flies over the waves, goes wherever it likes.
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What is white magic ? Magic that does good is called "white magic" and magic that does harm is called "black" magic. But after all they are mere words and have not much sense. Magic ?… It is a knowledge that has been reduced to purely material formulas. They are numbers or words or combinations of words and numbers, which simply if they are uttered or written even by someone who has no inner power are supposed to act. It is in occultism what corresponds to chemical formulas in science. You have thus chemical formulas for combining certain elements and by that you produce others, and even if you do not have the mental or vital or even physical power, you arrive at the intended result, provided you follow the formula to the letter, — it is sufficient to have simply the memory. Well, the same thing has been tried in occultism, to make combinations of sounds, letters, numbers, words which, by their inherent qualities, have the power to secure a result. So, the first imbecile that happens to come, if he learns and does exactly as he is told, gets or believes he gets the result that he wishes to obtain. But take, for example, the mantra, which is occultism. Unless it is given by a Guru and unless the Guru transmits along with the mantra his occult or spiritual power, you may repeat your mantra thousands of times, it will have no effect. Because in the true occultism, one must have the quality, capacity, inner gift to make use of the knowledge and that is the safeguard. The true occultism cannot be done by the first idiot that comes. It is no more magic — neither white magic nor black magic nor golden magic, it is not magic at all — it is a spiritual power which one must acquire through a long discipline and finally it is given to you only by the divine Grace.
That is to say, as soon as you approach the truth, you are shielded from all chralatanism, pretention and falsehood. I have many thoroughly convincing proofs of it. One who has the true occult power, possesses at the same time, by the force of this inner truth, the power to undo all magic white or black or of whatever colour they are, simply by the application of a drop of this truth.
Page-10 There is nothing that can resist this power. And this is well-known to all who practise magic, as they always take very great care, in all countries, but particularly in India, not to try any formula of theirs against a yogi or a saint, for thy know that these formulas which they send out with their small very superficial mechanical power would come to strike, like a ball against a wall, the true power that protects the person who has a spiritual life and their magical formula quite naturally will rebound and fall , back upon them. The Yogi or the Saint has nothing to do, he has not even to wish to be protected, the thing is automatic. He is in a state of consciousness and inner power which protects him automatically from everything inferior. Naturally he can also use deliberately his power to protect others from it. This rebounding of the bad formation against his atmosphere protects him automatically, but if the bad formation is directed against someone whom he protects or who simply asks for his help, he can by a movement of his own atmosphere, his own aura surround the person who is aimed at by the evil magic, and the procedure of rebounding acts in the same manner; the bad formation falls back quite naturally upon the person who made it. But in this case the conscious will of the Yogi or saint or sage is necessary. He must be informed of the matter and he has to decide to intervene. That is the difference between true knowledge and magic. Can physical science, by progressing, open itself to occultism ? It is only a question of words. They have made a long circuit and come to the same thing. They are making sensational discoveries known already to those who had the occult knowledge thousands of years ago.
In the most recent discoveries in medicine, in applied Science, for example, they are thus contacting, with a wondering interest, things known to some sages very long ago. They present to you
Page-11 these things as new wonders; and yet these wonders of theirs are a little time-worn ! They will end by doing occultism without knowing that they are doing it, because, after all, as soon as you approach the truth of things even a little of it, and if you are sincere in your seeking, not satisfied with appearances only, if you want to find truly something, you dig deep, deep behind the appearances, then you begin to move towards the truth of things and as you approach it, you find the same knowledge as that which others brought forth in former times from their inner discoveries. It is only the method and the way that are different, but the thing discovered will be the same, because there are not two things to discover, there is only *one. Necessarily it will be the same thing. Everything depends on the way that one follows; some go quick, others go slowly, some move straight to the goal, others make a circuit, and how much labour ! How have they laboured … It is indeed very respectable.
Now, they are discovering, for example, that they can replace anesthesis by hypnotism with far better results; well, hypnotism is a form of occultism, — upon which they have put modern words to make the thing modern, — a form very thin, very tiny and with a power quite
lirnited in comparison with the occult power, still it is a form of occultism. It has been tried, for example, to use hypnotism to make a graft of skin on a wound; I do not remember the details, but it was required that the arm should remain for fifteen days tied to the thigh. If the normal procedure was followed, immobilising the person by a plaster or bandages, then at the end of the fortnight, it would have been impossible for her to move, everything would have been made stiff and weeks of treatment would be required to recover the free use of movements. In this case, nothing was tied, nothing immobilised physically, no plaster, no bandage, nothing; the hypnotist had simply ordered the person and told her to hold her arm in that position without moving. She held it for fifteen days, without effort, without difficulty, without the need of her will intervening —it was the will of the hypnotist which was acting.. .And the thing succeeded perfectly well, the arm remained in the required
Page-12 position and when the fifteen days had passed and the hypnotism was taken away, she was told, "Now you can move", and she began to move. Well, it is a progress. They will soon meet, it will no longer be anything but a question of words, — then, if one is not too obstinate, one can come to an understanding with regard to the value of words.
It is said that hypnotism has a bad after-effect on the person hypnotised ? No, if hypnotism is done to impose one’s will upon another, obviously that can do much harm, but we are speaking of hypnotism that is done in a humanitarian way, if one can say so, and for definite reasons. All bad effect can be avoided if the hypnotiser has no bad intentions. If you use chemical formulas ignorantly, you may produce an explosion, and that is very dangerous. Well, if you use occult formulas ignorantiy — or egoistically, which is still worse than ignorance — you may produce harmful effects. But it is not that occultism is bad or that hypnotism is bad or that chemistry is bad. You are not going to banish chemistry, because there are people who create explosions. To learn occultism, one must have special qualities, is it not, whereas to learn the sciences.. But for everything one must have special qualities !
Just listen, if you are not an artist, you may labour for years with brush and colour and canvas, spend a great deal of money and energy and do horrible things. If you are not a musician, you may yoke yourself for hours playing on the piano and you will not be able to do anything decent. Always you must have special qualities. Even for an athlete, if you are not a born athlete, you may try as much as you like, you will arrive only at something
Page-13 very average and very ordinary. It is better than one who tries nothing, but that does not mean that you are going to succeed automatically. Besides, if one goes a little farther, everybody possesses within himself countless possibilities of which one is ignorant and which are developed only if one does what ought to be done and in the way needed. There are two kinds of progress, not one; there is the progress which consists in making more perfect the possibilities, capacities, faculties and qualities that one possesses already, — generally it is what one gets by education, — but if you follow a little profounder development, as you approach a deeper truth, you can add to the qualities that you have new qualities that are as it were asleep in your being. You can multiply your possibilities, greaten them, increase them, you can bring forth all on a sudden something which you did not think you had. I have explained it to you many times : when one discovers the psychic being within himself, there develop and manifest in quite an unexpected way things which one could not do at all or did not believe them to be in his nature. I already cited this example among many others of a young girl who was born in very ordinary surroundings, had not received much education, writing a rather shaky French; she had not cultivated her imagination and had absolutely no literary sense; it seemed as though that was no part of her possibilities. Well, when she had this inner experience of a contact with her psychic being and while the contact was living and present, she wrote admirable things; when she fell back from this state into an ordinary state, she did not know how to put together two sentences correctly, and I had both the things in my hands. There is a genius within oneself and one does not know it.
You must find the way to bring it out….But it is there asleep, it asks nothing better than manifesting itself, — you must open the door.
Page-14 The language of stars In a general way, the moon is associated with spiritual force, spiritual progress, spiritual aspiration. The waxing moon is considered as the symbol of spiritual aspiration for transformation and the spiritual fulness is symbolised by the full moon. Moonlight has always been considered as very favourable to visions, to poetic inspiration and to all extraterrestrial activity. One finds all kinds of stories and legends about stars — stars appearing on the birthday of a divine being, for example — but all that is symbolism of a very literary kind. There is a belief sufficiently well-spread according to which stars have a special influence on the destiny of persons; there is a whole knowledge based on that, giving, according to the different positions of the stars in the sky, complete predictions of what will happen in your life. When one is in the primary stage of thought, this is translated by saying that stars have an influence on your life. It would be more logical and true to think that it is a kind of notation or record of the destiny of an individual, because all things hold together in the universal unity, and if you know how to read the relations between the individual and the universal, you can find in the universal astral positions a kind of graph symbolically representing the life-existence of one individual or another. Experience proves that this notation which is called horoscope in astrology is not something absolute and that astrological destiny is not inescapable, for by the very fact that one has taken to yoga and is developing spiritually, one escapes from the law of the horoscopes. It is a kind of notation, on the material plane, of the relations between the universal life and the individual life and these relations can be altered by introducing a higher plane of consciousness into the material consciousness.
All that is what might be called things of half-knowledge. They are very primitive attempts to seize the links of interdependence between universal existence and individual existence. And all these things are much more a language enabling us to fix certain half-worked out knowledge than absolute rules or the notion of
Page-15 undisputed facts. They are trials, attempts to know things as they are, but these attempts are quite incomplete. They may have a certain attraction for some heads, but they are after all very approximative means to go towards the truth of things. If you go sufficiently deep into human mental knowledge, you will see that all this knowledge as we find it externally in the mental consciousness is nothing but a system of languages complicated enough but enabling us to understand each other, they have however only a very distant correspondence with the reality of things. There is a way of direct approach, by identity, which is much more effective, which makes you touch with your finger, so to say, the key of the mechanism of things, a direct key which has no need of any complicated science to express itself, something which corresponds to the movements of consciousness and will that would have no need of all the mental complications to translate itself, — then the whole of the universal reality becomes a symbol and it can be directly perceived in its essence. * * *
Is there a spiritual being in everybody ? That depends on what you call "being". If you replace being by "presence", — yes, there is a spiritual presence in everybody. If you call "being" an organised entity, fully conscious of itself, independent, having the power to affirm itself and govern the rest of your nature, — then, no ! The possibility of this independent and all-powerful being is there in everybody, but its realisation is the result of a long endeavour stretching sometimes over many lives.
In everyone, even at the very beginning there is this spiritual presence, this inner light.. .in fact, it is everywhere. I have seen it many a time in some animals. It is like a shining point which is at the basis of a certain controlling and protecting power; something
Page-16 which makes a certain harmony possible, even in a semiconsciousness, with the rest of the creation, so that irremediable catastrophes do not become constant and general. Without this presence, the disorder created by vital violences and passions would be such as to create at any moment a general catastrophe, a kind of total destruction that would prevent Nature’s progress. It is owing to this presence, this spiritual light, — which one might call a spiritual consciousness — within every being and everything that in spite of all clashes and passions and violences there exists a minimum of general harmony which permits Nature’s work to fulfill itself. And this presence becomes wholly evident in the human being, even the most rudimentary. Even in the most monstrous human being, one that gives you the impression that he is the incarnation of a devil or a monster, there is something which imposes some irresistible control, — even in the worst there are things that are impossible. And without this presence, if the being was exclusively governed by adverse forces, the vital forces, this check would not exist. Each time that a wave of such adverse forces, terrible as they are, spreads upon the earth, you have the impression that nothing will stop the disorder and horror that sweep over it and always at a given moment, unexpectedly, inexplicably a check intervenes, the wave is wiped away and the catastrophe is not a total catastrophe. It is because of this supreme Presence in Matter.
But only in some exceptional beings and after a long, very long travail of preparation, extending over many lives, does this Presence change into a being conscious, independent, fully organised, all-powerful master of the house in which he dwells; sufficientiy conscious and powerful to be able to have control not only over this house, but over all that surrounds him and in a field of radiation and action more and more wide and effective.
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The new birth In fact, so long as there is hesitation or doubt, so long as you put the question to know whether you have or have not realised the eternal soul within us, it proves that the true contact has not been made, because, when the phenomenon happens it brings with it something inexpressible, so new and so definitive that doubt or question is no longer possible. It is truly, in the absolute sense of the word, a new birth. You become a new person, and whatever be the way and the difficulties of the way afterwards, that sense no longer leaves you. It is not, like many other experiences, something that withdraws, passes into the background, leaving on the outside a vague memory to which you find it difficult to cling, the memory fading away and getting blurred, — it is not that. You are a new person, and you are that definitively, whatever might happen. Even all mental incapacities, all vital difficulties, all inertia in the physical cannot change this new state; there has been a definite scission in the life of the consciousness. The being one was before and the being one is after are not the same. The position that you have in the universe in relation to the universe, the position you have in life in relation to fife, the comprehension you have in relation to the comprehension are no longer the same. It is truly a reversal which cannot be unmade. That is why, when people say; "I would like to know if I am in contact with my soul or not", I tell them : "that is sufficient. If you put the question, it proves that you are not". You do not need to have a reply, you give it yourself. When it is that, it is that and there the matter ends — it is no other thing. And since we are speaking of new birth, I would remind you of what Sri Aurobindo has said, written, affirmed and said it over and over again, it is this that his Yoga, the integral Yoga can begin only after that experience, not before. So you must not nurse illusions and imagine that you can begin to know what the supramental is and judge of it, in whatever way, however little, before you have this experience. That is why, if you want to progress on the way, you must humbly step on the Page-18 path for the new birth, first of all, and realise it before you fancy that you can have supramental experiences. To comfort you I may say that by the very fact that you live upon earth at this moment — whether you are conscious of it or not and even whether you wish it or not — you absorb with the air that you breathe this new supramental substance which is spreading in earth’s atmosphere and it is preparing in you things that will manifest all on a sudden, as soon as you have taken the decisive step. Whether that will help you or not to take this decisive step is another question which has to be studied, because the experiences that are happening and will now happen more and more being of a quite new character, one cannot know beforehand what will come to pass; one must study and after a close study one would be able to say with certainty whether this supramental substance will make the work of the new birth easy or not. I shall tell you about it a litde later on. For the moment it is better not to count on these things, but simply to take to the way for the birth into the spiritual life. When you will have taken this decisive step, almost the whole set of questions that you put to yourself or to me will be resolved. In any case, your attitude towards life will be so different that you will understand what is meant when one speaks of living a spiritual life. Then you will understand also a great thing, a very great thing, how one can five without ego. Until then you do not understand it. The whole life depends so much on the ego that it seems absolutely impossible to five and act unless with and by the ego, but after this new birth, one can look at the ego with a smile and tell it, "My friend, I have no more need of thee". *
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Page-19 To abandon responsibility of oneself (Commentary on the Dhammapada) It always seems to me that the reasons given for becoming wise are very poor reasons. "Do not do this, it will give you pain, do not do that, it will give rise to fear in you"… .And the consciousness becomes more and more dry, it becomes hardened, for it is afraid of having grief, it is afraid of having pain. I would rather people say that there is a state of consciousness which one can obtain through aspiration and a constant inner effort where there is unmixed delight and shadowless light, where fear is an impossibility. It is a state in which you live no more for yourself, where whatever you do, whatever you feel, all your movements are an offering to the Supreme, in an absolute trust, unloading oneself of all responsibility for oneself, handing over to him all the burden, which is no more a burden. It is an inexpressible delight no longer to have responsibility for oneself, no more to have to think of oneself. It is so irksome, so monotonous, so insipid to think of oneself, to have to be careful about what one should do or should not do, what will do you good and what will do you harm, the thing you must avoid, the thing you must seek, oh, how troublesome it is! But when you live like that, like a flower that opens to the sun, wide open to the Supreme Consciousness, the Supreme Wisdom, the Supreme Light, the Supreme Love who knows all, is capable of all, who takes charge of you and you have no more care, that is the ideal condition. And why one does not do that ? One does not think of it or forgets to do it, old habits come back, and particularly there is behind, somewhere hidden in the inconscient or even in the subconscient this treacherous doubt that slips into your ear : "Oh, but if you do not take care, a mishap will come to you. If you forget to watch over yourself, you do not know what is going to happen"…and you are so dull, so dull, so dark, so stupid that you listen — and you begin to pay attention to yourself and everything is demolished. You have to begin again and infuse into your cells a little bit Page-20 of wisdom, a little bit of common sense and learn once more not to be full of cares. *
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To express the inmost experience in gestures of every day and every moment. One point is very remarkable that of all these four activities or realisations about which Sri Aurobindo speaks — religion, occultism, spiritual philosophy and spiritual experience — and which are necessary for man’s growth and transformation, all are not equally accessible to humanity. That which can be practised and, one might perhaps say, understood, — although it is not surely an understanding, — by the largest number of human beings, those who live almost exclusively in the physical consciousness, is the religious method. Precisely because it is based on creeds and fixed practices. Simply, by an act of faith or a collective suggestion, especially a collective suggestion, a large number of human beings who have not yet reached any considerable inner growth can rally themselves to the path of religion. For occultism one must have already arrived at the second stage of self-development, be more conscious in the vital world in order to be able to enter into relation with the play of forces, which is indispensable for dealing with them. For spiritual philosophy, it is only those who have arrived at a sufficiently complete mental development and are fully conscious on the intellectual level that can usefully adopt this means; it is dead letter if you do not have the gift of mental gymnastic to follow all the acrobatics of the mind.
Lastly, Sri Aurobindo tells us somewhere in the "Life Divine" that to follow the path of spiritual experience, one must have within oneself a spiritual being, one must be what is called "twice born", because, if you do not have the spiritual being within you which
Page-21 is at least on the point of being self-conscious, you can imitate these experiences, but it is only a crude imitation or hypocrisy, it is not a reality. Therefore, to be able to follow these four ways simultaneously and practise them with an integral profit for the being, one must already be a complete individuality, capable of a conscious life in the four principal elements of human and spiritual nature. Naturally this inner growth is not always apparent. You may be in the presence of an individual having a conscious spiritual entity in him, ready for the most beautiful experiences, although externally he may seem to be quite crude and incomplete. Nor is it necessary to follow the progression in the order it has been mentioned, but if we want our realisation to be integral and the transformation of our being to be total, we must be able to make use of the essence of what each of the means brings. The psychic or spiritual consciousness gives you the deep inner realisation, the contact with the Divine, the liberation from external bondages, but in order that this liberation may be effective and have an action on the rest of the being, the mind must be sufficiently open and capable of containing the spiritual light of Knowledge, the vital must be sufficiently powerful and capable of dealing with the forces behind the appearances and dominate them and the physical must be sufficiently disciplined, organised and capable of expressing the deeper experience in the gestures of every day and of every moment and live it integrally. If anyone of these things is missing, the result is not complete. You can lightly get over any of these realisations under the plea that it is not the central thing, the most important thing; and certainly if you neglect external things, that cannot prevent you from entering into spiritual communion with the Divine, but that is good only for an escape from life.
If we must be a whole, a complete being, have an integral realisation we must be capable of translating mentally, vitally and physically our spiritual experience. And the more our trans-
Page-22 lation is perfect, done by a complete and perfect being, the more our realisation will be integral and perfect. For him who wants to follow the integral Yoga, there is nothing useless, nothing that should be neglected. The whole thing is to know how to put each thing in its place and to hand over rulership to that which has truly the right of ruling. *
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To open the invisible wings (Commentary on the Dhammapada) To get rid of all desires is certainly not an easy thing. That requires sometimes a whole life, and to say the truth, it seems to be a very negative way, although at a certain moment of self-development, it is a discipline very useful to practise and even indispensable, if one does not want to deceive oneself; for you begin at first by getting rid of the big desires, those that are quite evident, that disturb you so much that you cannot even have illusions about them, then come the more subtle desires that take the form of things which should be done, which are necessary, and even at times they are orders coming from within; and it needs time and a great deal of sincerity to discover and overcome them; finally you seem to have done with these cursed desires in the material world in external things, in your affective world in the emotions and feelings, in your mental world for ideas, but now you find them once more in the spiritual world and there they are much more dangerous, more subtle, more penetrating and much more invisible and covered with an appearance so saintly that you do not dare to call them desires. And when you have succeeded in overcoming all that, when you have discovered them, dislodged them and got rid of them, even then you have done only the negative side of the work.
The Buddha said or one has made him say that when one is free from all desire, one enters necessarily into the infinite beatitude.
Page-23 It is perhaps a beatitude somewhat dry, but in any case it does not seem to me to be the quickest way. If one seizes the problem bodily forthwith, throws oneself within with courage and determination and instead of pursuing a long, arduous, painful and deceptive hunt for desires, one gives oneself simply, wholly, unconditionally, abandons oneself to the supreme Reality, the supreme Will, the supreme Being, relying wholly on him in a yearning of the entire being, of all the elements of the being, without calculation, that is the quickest and most radical way of getting rid of the ego. You might say that it is difficult to do that, but at least, this has a warmth, an ardour, an enthusiasm, a light, a beauty, an ardent and creative life. It is true if desire is not there nothing much remains to sustain the ego and you have the impression that the consciousness has become so hardened and that if the ego has fallen into dust, something of oneself has also fallen into dust and one is quite ready to pass into Nirvana which is annihilation pure and simple. But what we consider here as the true Nirvana is the disappearance of the ego in the splendour of the Supreme. And that way is what I call the positive way, the self-giving that is integral, total, perfect without reserve and without bargaining. In the mere fact that one no more thinks of oneself, refers nothing to oneself, exists not for oneself, thinks only of what is most supremely beautiful, luminous, dehghtful, powerful, compassionate, infinite there is a joy so profound that nothing can be compared to it. It is the only thing that deserves, that is worth attempting. All the rest is only marking time on the same spot.
It is the difference between climbing a mountain by winding around, slowly, laboriously, step by step, during centuries and opening one’s invisible wings flying straight to the summit.
Page-24 The true solitude It is certain that to eat alone, to sleep alone, to walk alone and to live in the forest all alone is not at all sufficient to give you the freedom of the Spirit. It has been noted that the majority of those who live solitary in the forest become friends of all the animals and plants around them. It is not at all the fact of being alone that gives you the power to enter into an inner contemplation and five in communion with the supreme Truth. Perhaps it is more easy, when, through force of circumstances, you have nothing to do, but I am not convinced of it. You can always invent occupations and so far as my experience of life goes it seems to me that if you are able to master your nature in the midst of difficulties, if you endeavour to be alone internally with the eternal Presence, keeping all the environment as the Grace has given it to us, the realisation you get is infinitely more true, more deep and more durable. To run away from difficulties in order to conquer them is not a solution. It is very attractive, there is in those who seek the spiritual life something that says : "Oh, to sit down under a tree, all alone, to remain in meditation, no more to have the temptation to speak and act, how fine that must be !" It is because there is a very strong formation in this sense, but it is very illusory. The best meditations are those that you have all on a sudden, because they seize you as an imperative necessity. You cannot do otherwise than concentrate, meditate, look farther than the appearances. And it is not necessarily in the solitude of the forest that it seizes you, it is when something is ready within, when the moment is come, when the true need is there, when the Grace is with you. As I see it, humanity has made a progress and it is in life that the true victory is to be won. You must know how to be alone with the Eternal and the Infinite in the midst of all circumstances. You must know how to be free, with the Supreme for companion, in the midst of all occupations. That is the true victory. *
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Page-25 Happiness (Commentary on the Dhammapada) One of these verses is very fine. It can be translated thus : "Happy is he who possesses nothing. He will feed on the radiant delight of the radiant Gods". To possess nothing does not mean to use nothing, to have nothing at one’s disposal. "Happy is he who possesses nothing" means one who has not the sense of possession, who can use things when they come to him, knowing they are not his, they belong to the Supreme and who, for the same reason does not regret when things withdraw from him and finds it quite natural that the Lord who gave them to him withdraws them from him to make others enjoy them : he has an equal joy in the use of things and in the absence of things. When you have them at your disposal you receive them as a gift from the Grace and when they leave you, when they are withdrawn from you you live in the delight of destitution, — for it is the sense of proprietorship that attaches you to things, making you their slave, otherwise one could live in constant delight and the ceaseless movement of things that go, come, pass bringing with them all at once the sense of plenitude when they are there and the delight of detachment when they go. Delight ! The delight is to five in the Truth, to live in communion with Eternity, with the true Life, the Light that never fails. The Delight, it is to be free, to be free in true liberty, the Liberty of the constant and invariable union with the divine Will. The Gods are those who are immortal, who are not bound to the vicissitudes of the material life with all that is narrow, mean, unreal and false in them. The Gods are those who are turned to the Light and live in the Power and in the Consciousness — that is what the Buddha means to say : there is no question of the gods of religion. They are beings who are of a divine character, they can live in human bodies but free of ignorance and falsehood.
When one possesses nothing, one can become as wide as the universe.
Page-26 Message of Hope (Commentary on the Dhammapada) Here are a few very useful recommendations : moderation of language and control of the mind, abstention from bad acts. This is quite good. This one is radical, but this too is good : "So long as one has not cut the last root of man’s desire for woman, one possesses only a captive mind and as bound as a calf sucking its mother". And lastly : "root out thy love for thyself as one cuts down the lotus in autumn". These are good subjects for meditation. These recommendations seem to have been addressed to people who are just at the beginning of the Path, from the intellectual point of view. One visualises very well an assembly of peasants, people simple in mind, to whom one must say : "You know, it is no use making plans, because you do not know what will happen tomorrow. You accumulate wealth and you strut about in your family, you make plans for tomorrow and the days after and you are not aware that death is watching you and at any moment, it can fall upon you". There is however a little more advanced intellectual development when these things need not be said, — but to have lived them ! live in the awareness of the total impermanence of things and that one must never bind oneself if one wants to be free to progress with the universe and grow in the eternal rhythm. That is understood. But what is important is the practice. And here one has the impression that these things are said to people who have not thought of them before, so they have all the power of active force. After all, in spite of the appearances, humanity progresses; it has progressed above all mentally. There are things which need not be said.. .or one has to go to countries that are in the very primitive stage, and still, — ideas have spread everywhere, the mental light is scattered everywhere; in the most unexpected places you find receptivity and understanding.
Truly one has the impression that in the last century, a light
Page-27 has spread upon earth and because of it certain ideas that were idea-forces, new ideas with the power to stir the consciousness have lost their actuality, they have become old. A new light is at work. In practice, the progress is not very great, perhaps even on certain points there has been retrogression, but in the mind, in the understanding, in the intellectual vision of things there has truly been a great change. We seem now to be marching on the way at an accelerated step and things that were of capital importance are becoming almost commonplaces before the new discoveries. Life as it is may be bad, disorder may be everywhere, pain everywhere, confusion everywhere, chaos everywhere, ignorance everywhere, we all know it, it seems to be a thing that has been repeated ad nauseam. But that you can come out of it by means of an integral realisation, an integral transformation, a new light that will put order and harmony in things — this is the message of hope that one must bring. That is true, that is dynamic. It is a new life that one must build. Then all these difficulties that appear so unsurmountable, oh, they tumble down of themselves. When you can live in the light and delight, would you st’ck to darkness and suffering ? *
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Sadhana in the body
"In the very nature of things all evolution must proceed at first by a slow unfolding; for each new principle that evolves its powers has to make its way out of an involution in In-conscience and Ignorance. It has a difficult task in pulling itself out of the involution, out of the hold of the obscurity of the original medium, against the pull and strains, the instinctive opposition and obstruction of the Inconscience and the hamper- Page-28
ing mixture and blind obstinate retardations of the Ignorance. Nature affirms at first a vague urge and tendency which is a sign of the push of the occult, subliminal, submerged reality to the surface; there are then small half-suppressed hints of the thing that is to be, imperfect beginnings, crude elements, rudimentary appearances, small, insignificant, hardly recognisable quanta. Afterwards there are small or large formations; a more characteristic and recognisable quality begins to show itself, first partially, here and there or in a low intensity, then more vivid, more formative; finally, there is the decisive emergence, a reversal of the consciousness, the beginning of the possibility of its radical change : but still much has to be done in every direction, a long and difficult growth towards perfection lies before the evolutionary endeavour. The thing done has not only to be confirmed, secured against relapse and the downward gravitation, against failure and extinction, but opened out into all the fields of its possibilities, its totality of entire self-achievement, its utmost height, subtlety, riches, wideness; it has to become dominant, all-embracing, comprehensive. This is everywhere the process of Nature and to ignore it is to miss the intention in her works and get lost in the maze of her procedure." Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Vol. II, Book II, Chap. XXIV
That seems to be a very exact description of individual development; it is exactly like that. So you lose patience or you lose courage, for you have the impression that you do not advance; but when you deal with the development of the body — material, physical development, — when you want the physical body to do sadhana, it is exacdy that. You begin by trying all kinds of things that are without precision, without exactness, not knowing by which end to begin, and you have the impression that you grope, search, turn round and go nowhere; then little by little something or other shows itself, and it is only long after that some programme begins to work out. And when the aim of evolution bursts forth and becomes perceptible, how much care is to be taken so that
Page-29 everything may not be swallowed up again in the original inconscience. That is why the work seems to be interminable. And yet that is the only way of doing it. The way to travel from the normal state of the body, this almost total inconscience to which we are accustomed, because we are like that, to the perfect awakening of the consciousness, the response of all the cells, organs and functions is long — between the two there seem to lie centuries of labour. Yet if one knew how to open oneself, how to aspire and give oneself and if one could, in the body, make use of the same movements, teach the cells to do the same, to aspire, to open, to give themselves, then it would go much quicker.. .But much quicker does not mean quickly, it is still a long and slow work. And each time an element that had not entered into the movement of transformation awakes to do so, one has the impression that everything has to be begun again, all that was thought to have been done is to be done over again. But this is not true, it is not the same thing that is done over again, it is a similar thing in a new element which had been either forgotten or left aside, because it was not ready and being ready awakes and wants to take its place. There are many elements like that. The body seems to you a very simple thing, is it not ? It is a body, it is my body, and after all it has one single form, — but it is not like that, it is hundreds of entities combined together that are ignorant of each other, brought into harmony by something deeper which they do not know; they have the sense of unity only because they are not conscious of the multiplicity of the elements and their divergence. Indeed, it is this multiplicity and this divergence that are the cause of most of the disorders, if not of maladies even. Something goes on well, one has got hold of the thread and been following his way, thinks that he has arrived at a result, suddenly, up comes something unexpected. It was not known that the thing was there, it wakes up, asks for joining the march, but it creates a frightful disorder and you have to begin all over again. The sadhana of all the inner beings, the domains within, has been done by many; it has been explained at length, systematised Page-30 by some. They are stages and ways that have been marked out and you go from stage to stage knowing that things must be like this, but as soon as you come down into the body, it is a virgin forest, everything has to be done, everything has to be worked out, everything has to be built up; therefore you need must be armed with patience, much patience and not to believe that because you take much time you are good for nothing. You must never be discouraged, never say, "Oh, that, that is not for me !" Everyone can do it, if he puts into it the needed time and courage, endurance and perseverance, yes, all that is needed and above all, above all, to be never discouraged, to be ready to begin ten times, twenty times hundred times the same thing until it is really done. Often it seems that unless all is done, the work is not finished, as if nothing had been done. *
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Why do we not profit as much as we should by our presence here in the Ashram ? Ah ! It is very simple ! Because it is too easy. When you have to go round the world to find a teacher, when you have to abandon everything in order to get only the first words of a teaching, then this teaching, this spiritual aid becomes a very precious thing, like all things that are difficult to obtain, and you try hard to deserve it.
Here, most of you came quite young, at an age when there is no question of spiritual life or spiritual teaching; that would have been quite premature. You have indeed lived in the atmosphere but without even perceiving it; you are accustomed to see me, hear me, I speak to you as one speaks to children, I have even played with you as people play with children; you have only to come and sit down and hear me speak, you have only to put a question to me and I answer you, I have never refused to say anything to anybody, it is so easy. It is enough to five, sleep,
Page-31 eat, take exercises and go to school. You live here as you would anywhere else. So you have got the habit. If I had made strict rules, if I had said, "I will tell ) roles a thing only when you will truly make an effort to hear it", then perhaps you would make the effort, Perhaps after all something is preparing and one day it will leap forth outside. That is my hope. One day you will say : "Well, I was here so long, I could have learnt so much, realised so much, and I did not even think of it, — only like that, from time to time"… .That day, just imagine, you will wake up all on a sudden to something which you did not notice at all, which is in your inmost depth, which is athirst for the truth, for the transformation and which is ready to make the needed effort to realise it. That day, you will go quick, you will advance with a giant’s step. Perhaps that day is come, perhaps you are going to feel suddenly an irresistible need not to live in inconscience, in that state when you do things without knowing why, feel things without understanding wherefore, where you have contradictory wills, where you understand nothing whatever, where you live by habit, routine and reactions, you let yourself live on-— and one day you feel you can no more continue like that. What happens is different to different people. Most often it is the need to know, to understand; for others it is the need to do what is to be done and in the way to be done; for others again it is a vague feeling that behind this life so unconscious, so futile, so destitute of sense, there is something to be found which is worth living, that there is a reality, a truth behind these falsehoods and illusions.
You feel suddenly that all that you do, all that you see has no sense, has no purpose, but there is something which has sense and after all you are here on earth for something. All that, all these movements, all this restlessness, all this waste of force and
Page-32 energy must have a purpose, a goal and this uneasiness you feel within yourself, this dissatisfaction, this need, this thirst for something must lead us elsewhere. And one day, you put the question to yourself, "But wherefore one is born ? Wherefore does one die ? Why does one suffer ? Why does one act ?" You no more live like a little machine, that is hardly half-conscious. You want to feel truly, act truly, know truly. Then in the ordinary life you look for books, you look for persons who know of the thing a little more than you do; you set about in quest of someone who can solve your questions, lift the veil of ignorance. Here it is very simple. You have only to do the things you are doing everyday, but to do them with a purpose. You go to the Samadhi, you look at the photograph of Sri Aurobindo, you come to receive a flower from me, you sit for your lesson, you do everything that you do habitually, but with a question within yourself. If you put the question, you receive the answer. Why ? Because we do not want the life as it is, because we have enough of suffering and unconsciousness, because we have enough of disorder and ill-will, because Sri Aurobindo came to tell us, "One need not leave the earth to find the Truth, one need not leave the life to find his soul, one need not abandon the world or have only limited beliefs to enter into relation with the Divine." The Divine is everywhere, in everything and if He is hidden, it is because we do not take the trouble to discover Him." We can, simply by sincere aspiration, open a door sealed within us and find that something which will change the whole significance of life, which will answer all our questions, solve all our problems and take us towards that perfection to which we aspire without knowing it, to that Reality which alone can satisfy us and give us joy and poise and force and life that are durable. All that you have heard many times.
You have heard, — yes, there are even some who have been so accustomed to it that it seems to them to be the same thing as drinking a glass of water or opening the window to let in the sun.
Page-33 We have tried a little, but now we are going to try seriously. The starting point is will, to will truly, to have need of it. The next step is to think of that above all. A day comes very soon when you cannot think of anything else. That is the only thing that counts. And then you formulate your aspiration, you throw up from your heart a true prayer, expressing the sincerity of the need and then… well, we shall see what is going to happen. Something will happen, it is sure that there will come something. That will take a different form for different people. * * * Each one his formula I am asked what Sri Aurobindo means by "the mental consequences of the spiritual theorem of existence." It is probably someone who does not know what "theorem" means. A theorem is the statement of a truth to which you have arrived through reasoning. The word is used in mathematics and in all external sciences in a very concrete way. It is the same thing from the philosophical standpoint. In the present case, the spiritual theorem of existence can be stated thus, "The Absolute in the relativities or the Unity in the multiplicity. But to explain what are the mental consequences of this theorem, we must study philosophy and I believe you are very ill-prepared for that. Besides, if you want to understand truly what that means, then you feel as if philosophy is always on the border of truth, like a tangent that approaches and approaches, but never touches, as if there is something that escapes. And this some thing is, as a matter of fact, the whole thing.
To understand these things.. .it is only to experience, to live the truth. Not to feel by way of the ordinary senses, but to realise within yourself the truth, the concrete existence of two states simultaneously,
Page-34 existing at the same time, although they are of opposite conditions. All words can lead only towards a confusion, only experience gives the tangible reality of the thing. The simultaneous existence of the Absolute and the relativities, the Unity and the multiplicity, not as two states one succeeding the other or one producing the other, but as a state which can be perceived in two opposite ways according to the position taken in relation to the Reality. Words themselves betray the experience. To utter words, you have not got to take a step backward, but a step downward and so the essential truth escapes you. You must use words simply as a more or less accessible path to reach the thing itself which cannot be formulated. And from this point of view, no formula is better than any other; the best of all is that which helps each one to remember, that is to say, the way in which the intervention of the Grace crystallised itself in his thought. It is probable that there are no two ways identical, each one must find his own; but you must not make a mistake, it is not finding by reasoning, but finding by aspiration; it is not by study and analysis, but by the intensity of aspiration and the sincerity of inner opening. When you are truly and exclusively turned towards the spiritual Truth, whatever be the name you give it, when all the rest becomes secondary, when that alone is imperative and inevitable, then only one moment of concentration that is intense, absolute, total is sufficient to get the response. In such a case, the experience comes first and only afterwards, as a consequence and a memory, the formulation becomes precise. As such you are sure of not making a mistake. The formulation may be more or less good, it has no importance at all, provided you do not make a dogma of it. It is good for you, that is all that is needed. If you want to impose it on others, whatever it may be, even if it is perfect in itself, it becomes false.
That is why religions always blunder. ..always. For they want to standardise the expression of an experience and impose it on all as an irrefutable truth. The experience was true, complete
Page-35 in itself, convincing, — for him who had it. The formula he has made of it is excellent, — for him; but to want to impose it on others is a gross error which has altogether disastrous consequences … always and which always takes away, far away from the Truth. That is why all religions, however fine they may be have always led men to the worst excesses. All crimes, all horrors that have been perpetrated in the name of religion are among the darkest spots in human history and simply because of this little original error : to want what is true for an individual to be true for the mass or for the collectivity. You must show the way… and open the doors, but each one has to walk on the path, pass through the doors and move towards his personal realisation. The only help that one can and should receive is the help of the Grace which formulates itself in each one according to his own need.
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If we take the human body as the tabernacle of the Lord, then the medical science becomes the ritual of the worship and the doctors the priests officiating in the temple. Thus considered, the medical career is a sacerdocy and must be treated as such. The Mother First learn to know yourself perfectly and then to control yourself perfectly. You will be able to do it by aspiring every moment. It is never too early to begin, never too late to continue. The Mother Page-37
Eeimprime du Bulletin d’Education Physique Novembre 1958 IMPRIMERIE DE SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM PONDICHfiRY
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