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THE MOTHER
Questions and Answers
Sri Aurobindo Ashram Pondicherry
November, 1960
Reprinted from The Bulletin of S. A. I. C. of Education November, 1960 Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press. Pondicherry
Questions and Answers I
Why can’t we pass from the rational mind directly to the Supramental, now that the Supramental has descended ? Who has said that it cannot be done ? Sri Aurobindo gives here a description of what one should do to be able to come in contact with the Supramental and prepare the ground for its manifestation. But now that ,it has entered the earthly atmosphere, I do not see why a precise and single procedure should be inflicted upon it in its rr. an’ festation. If it pleases the Supermind to illumine directly an instrument which it finds convenient or ready or fit, I do not see why it should not do it. And I repeat, who has said that it could not be otherwise ? None. What Sri Aurobindo describes here is another thing and in fact it is what has happened. It was the necessary preparation so that the manifestation might take place. But now I do not see why or on what basis a particular procedure should be imposed on the action of the Supermind; why should it not have the freedom to choose its own means ? I think one can foresee all possibilities and every sincere aspiration, every consecration that is total will have a response. The procedures, means, transitions, transformations will be innumerable in their nature. It is not at all that things will be done in one way only and not in another.
Essentially, every one, whoever he may be, who is ready
to receive even a particle or a particular aspect of the supramental
consciousness and light must automatically receive it. The effects of this
consciousness and this light are innumerable, because
Page-1 they vary themselves surely according to the possibility and capacity of each one, according , to the sincerity of his aspiration. The more total the consecration, the more intense the aspiration, the more integral and intense will be the result. But the effects of the supramental action will be countless in its manifcstation, multiple, innumerable, infinitely varied, not necessarily following a line precise and the same for all—that is impossible, for it is contrary to the nature of the supramental consciousness. The quality even of the atmosphere is changed; the consequences must be infinitely varied, but recognisable. That is to say, the consequences of supramental action could be distinguished from the consequences of ordinary movements, because they will have an especial nature and character. But this does not mean that anyone, at any moment, in any way is going to become all at once a supramental genius. You must not expect that. I was going to say if you find that you are a little less stupid than before, it would be already something !
Will this influence manifest also in the domain of education ? Why do you want to ban one domain or another from it? Because the system of education which we follow is still, as Sri Aurobindo says, ‘a brilliant poverty of human intellect’. You speak of the education you give to your students, no ? But that should have changed long long ago.
People have a lamentable habit of copying what has been
done before and what has been done by others. I told you that long ago. This
argument "one must do this, because it is this that is done everywhere". But I
reply, ‘It is perhaps because of that that we should not do it ! for if all
others do it, what is the good of our also doing that ?’
Page-2 But how can it be done without your intervention ? But why do you ask me ? You must first of all change your system of education in accordance with the principles of the Supramental. At least you try. You should not ask, you should do it. If you always move in the same rut, you may continue in the rut indefinitely. You must try to get out of it. Indeed I am having a constant discussion on the subject. I believe today, or perhaps yesterday, I was pleading for the right of every one to remain in ignorance if it so pleased him. I do not speak of the ignorance according to the spiritual conception—the world of ignorance in which we are—I do- not speak of that. I speak of ignorance, according to the classical conception of education. Well, I say that if there are beings who do not want to be educated, who do not like to learn, they have the right not to be educated. Your duty is to tell them only this : "Now, you are of the age when your brain is being made ready, it is being built up. Each new thing you study, makes a kind of small circumvolution in your head. The more you study and reflect and work, the more complex and complete become the small circumvolutions of your brain. And as you are young, this is the time when it is done best. That is why man’s habit has been to choose youth as the age to learn, because it is infinitely more easy then. And evidently so long as the child is not somewhat conscious of himself, he should be subjected to some rule; for, he is not yet capable of choosing by himself. And that age varies considerably. It depends upon the people, upon each individual. But normally it is understood that within the period of the seven years that run from seven to fourteen you come to the age of reason. And if you are helped you can become a rational being from the age of seven years to fourteen.
But before seven years—there are geniuses, there are
always geniuses everywhere—the general rule is that the child is not conscious
of himself and he does not know why or how to do things. It is the time when he
should be made to cultivate attention,
Page-3 to learn how to concentrate on what he does, just a sufficient basis so that he may not be altogether a little animal, but belong to the human race through a primary intellectual growth. After that, there is a period of seven years when he should be taught to choose—choose what he wishes to be. If he chooses to possess a brain rich, complex, well-developed and powerful in its working, then naturally he must be taught to work; for it is by work, by reflection, by study, by the analytical faculty and all that follows that you form your brain. At fourteen you are or you should be ready to know what you want to be. And then I say, if at about that age some children declare categorically : "The intellectual development does not interest me at all, I do not want to study, I want to remain ignorant in the ordinary way of ignorance", I do not see by what right one should force them to study nor why they should all be levelled together. There are some who are at the bottom, there are others who belong to another rung. There are people who may have very remarkable capacities but have no taste for intellectual development. They may be warned that if they do not work, do not study, they will feel embarrassed perhaps in the presence of others when they are grown up. But if it is all the same for them and if they want to live a life that is not intellectual, I consider that none has the right to force them. That is my constant quarrel with the teachers of the school ! They come and tell me, if they do not work, they will be stupid and ignorant. I say, if it pleases them to be stupid and ignorant, what right have you to interfere ? You cannot make knowledge and intelligence compulsory. That’s all.
Now if you believe that by abstaining from all effort
and study, you will become geniuses, and supramental geniuses into the bargain,
do not have illusions, please, that will never happen to you. For even if you
come in touch with the higher light, by your inner aspiration or by the divine
grace, you will have nothing
Page-4 there in your head to be able to express it. So, that will remain in quite a nebulous state and will change nothing in your external life. But if it pleases you to be like that, nobody has any right to force you to be otherwise; you must wait till you have enough consciousness to enable you to choose. Evidently there are people who at fourteen years are like children of five years. But such persons have not much hope, especially those who have lived here. This then changes altogether your point of view in the matter of education. Fundamentally the only thing you must do assiduously is to teach them to know themselves, and to choose their own destiny, the way they want to follow. Teach them to look at themselves, to understand themselves—and to will by themselves. This is much more important than to teach them what happened upon earth once upon a time or even how the earth is built, or even…that is a]^ kinds of things which are rather a necessary foundation if you wish to live the ordinary life in the world, because if you do not know them, you will be outright beaten intellectually : "Oh, that one, he is an idiot, he knows nothing". But even so you may take up books and work, at any age whatsoever, if you are studying and have the will; you need not go to school for that. There are enough books in the world for you to learn things. Even there are many more books than necessary. You can exhaust any subject by simply going there, to Medhananda, in the Library. You will have enough of it to fill you up to this (gesture).
But what is very important is to know what is it that
you want. And for that a minimum of freedom is necessary. One must not be under
the stress of compulsion or obligation. One must be allowed to do things
willingly. If you are lazy, well, you will know what is meant by being
lazy….You know, in life, the lazy are obliged to labour ten times more than
the others, because what they do they do badly and so they are obliged to do it
over again. But these things are to be learnt by experience. They cannot be
pressed into you.
Page-5 The mind, if it is not under check, is something fluid, imprecise. If you do not have the habit of concentrating it on some subject, it is floating about all the time. It goes about, stops nowhere and floats in a world of imprecision. And then when you want to fix your attention, how painful it is! You make just a little effort, there, "Oh, it is tiring, it pains !" and you give up. You live in a cloud as it were. You have your head (it is like that, most of the heads are like that) in the clouds. It has neither precision nor exactitude nor clarity, it is hazy—vague and misty. You have more the impressions rather than the knowledge of things. You live in an approximation and you can keep within yourself all kinds of contradictory ideas made out of your impressions and sensations and feelings and emotions—all kinds of things such as these that have very little to do with thought and are mere "vaguenesses". But if you want to attain a thought, precise, concrete, clear, definite on a certain point, you must make an effort, gather yourself, fix yourself, concentrate yourself. And the first time you do it, literally it pains you, it tires you ! But if you do not make a habit of it, the whole of your life you live floating. And when you deal with practical things, when you are in the presence, for in spite of everything you are always in the presence of a more or less large number of problems requiring solution, in an altogether practical order, then you are unable to pick up the elements of the problem, put them all in the front of each other, look at the question from all sides, place yourself above and then see the solution, instead, you are tossed about in a swirl of something grey and uncertain, it is like so many spiders running about in your head—you will not succeed in catching the thing. Naturally I am speaking of the simplest of problems. I do not speak of deciding the fate of the world or humanity or even that of a country, nothing of that. I am speaking of the problem of your daily life, of every day—that too becomes something absolutely woolly.
To avoid this you arc told when your brain is being
formed not to let it be formed with those habits and qualities, but try
Page-6 instead to give it some exactitude, precision, capacity to concentrate, to choose, to decide, put things face to face, try to make use of reason. It is of course well understood that reason is not the supreme capacity of man, one has to go beyond it; but it is also quite evident if you do not have it, you will live an altogether incoherent life, you will not even know how to behave in a rational manner. The least thing will upset you completely and you will not know why and still less how to remedy it. On the other hand, one who has a settled condition of active clear reason in him is able to face assaults of all kinds, assaults of emotions or assaults of some tests, because life is wholly made of these things—disagreeable things or things small but that are proportionate to one who feels them and he who feels them feels them naturally to be very great because they are according to his measure. Reason, however, can stand back a little; look at all that and smile and say, "oh, no, you must not make much ado about such a trifle". If you do not possess reason you will be like a piece of cork on a raging sea. I do not know if the piece of cork suffers because of its condition, but it does not seem to me to be of any advantage. That’s all. Now, after having said all that—and I have not said it once, but said it many times to you and I am ready to say it again as many times as you want—I now leave you entirely free to choose whether you wish to be the cork on the sea or to have a clear precise perception and a knowledge of things sufficient for you to be able to advance’—well, simply there where you want to go.
Because some clarity is indispensable so that you may be able
even to follow the path you have chosen. I do not demand that you should become
scholars—far from that! because then you fall into the other extreme, you fill
your head with so many things that there is no room for the higher light; but
there is an indispensable minimum so that you may not—well, may not become a
piece of cork.
Page-7
It is said that the general insufficiency in our studies comes from the fact that we attach too much importance to games, to physical education. Is it true ? Who has said that ? People who do not like physical education ? Old dried up professors who are not able to do exercises any more ? Is that so ? (I do not ask for names !) Well, I do not believe so. You remember the first article that Sri Aurobindo wrote in the Bulletin—he answers to such people in a very categorical manner. I do not think that it is so. I am altogether convinced that it is not so. I rather believe (and I take the blame on myself) that you have been given an almost fantastic freedom, my children —I do not believe that there is any part in the world where children are so free—and indeed it is very difficult to make good use of such a freedom.
Yet the experiment was worth the trial. You do
not appreciate it, because you do not know how things are when things are not
so; to you here all appears quite natural. But it is very difficult to organise
one’s own freedom. And yet if you succeed in self-disciplining yourself—for
higher reasons, not for passing examinations, making a career, pleasing your
professors, getting many prizes, for all such ordinary reasons that children
have —not to be scolded, not to be punished—we put aside all these reasons, and
if then you succeed in disciplining yourself (each his own discipline, it is not
necessary to follow the discipline of others) simply because you want to
progress, you want to pull the best out of you then you become beings much
superior to those who follow the ordinary school disciplines. That is what I
wanted to try. I do not say, please note, that I have failed; I have still a
bright hope that you will know how to profit by this unique occasion. But there
is one thing that you have to find : the necessity of an inner discipline;
without discipline you can go nowhere, without discipline you cannot even live
the normal fife of the normal man. But instead of having the conventional
discipline of
Page-8 ordinary societies, ordinary institutions, I wanted, I want still, that you should have the discipline that you put upon yourself for the love of perfection, your own perfection; the perfection of your being. But without that… note that if you had not disciplined your body you could not even stand erect on your two legs; you would have to be like children on all fours. You would be able to do nothing. You are compelled to discipline yourself; you could not live in society, you could not live at all, save perhaps all alone in the forest, and even that I do not know. It is altogether indispensable, I have told you, I do not know how many times. It is not that I have a well-marked aversion for conventional disciplines, social or other, and that one should abstain from all discipline. I would like rather that everyone should find his own discipline in the sincerity of his inner aspiration and the will to realise oneself. So then the aim of those who know, teachers, instructors or others, the very purpose for which they exist would be to inform you, to help you. When you have a matter which appears difficult to you, you submit your problem and they with their personal experience can tell you, "No, it is not like this or like that, you must do that, you must try this". Then instead of forcing you to absorb theories, principles or so-called laws, and a more or less abstract knowledge, they would be there to give you any information, from the most material to the most spiritual things, each in his own province, each according to his capacity.
Very evidently if you are thrown into the world without the
least technical knowledge, you can do dangerous things. Take a child who knows
nothing, the first thing he will do, if he has matches, for example, is to burn
himself. Therefore, in this field, from the purely material point of view, it is
good that there are people who know and can give you information; for otherwise
if each one had to learn by his own experience, one would need several lives to
know of the most indispensable things. That is the use, the true use of
professors and instructors. They have learnt more or less practically or by a
special study and they can
Page-9 give you information about things whose knowledge is indispensable. Then you gain time, much time. That is their utility, to answer to questions. In truth, you must have a brain living enough to have questions to ask. It looks as if you had nothing to ask me, or it is so rare. That proves only a terrible mental indolence. At certain moments I tell you : "do not put questions, try to find out by yourself certain inner things", it is all right. But when I am here and when I ask you : "Don’t you have questions to put ?"—there is silence. That proves then that you have no mental curiosity. I do not ask you that you should necessarily put questions on what I have just read; I am always ready to answer any question put by anybody. I must admit however that we are not rich in questions ! It is not often that I have the occasion to tell you something. But I make haste to tell you that if you put to me technical questions of science, physical or any other, I could very well answer : I know nothing of all that, read your books or ask your teacher, but if you put questions that are of my domain, I will answer always. So, a last trial: Has anybody here any question to put to me ? (Silence) Admirable ! (The mother laughs). Well, that’s all then. * * * II The Obscure Birth
Last week I spoke to you of birth : how souls enter into the body; and I told
you that this body is formed in a rather unsatisfactory
Page-10 way, almost for all people—the exceptions are so rare that it is hardly worth the trouble to speak about them. I told you that you come, through this obscure birth, with a whole physical baggage containing things that you have generally to get rid of if you are to progress truly. My own words have been quoted which are : "you are brought by force, an environment is imposed on you by force, the laws of atavism are imposed on you by force". Now, the person who writes to me asks who does all that ? Evidently I could have been more explicit, but I thought I was sufficiently clear. The body is formed by a man and a woman who become the father and the mother. And they are the people who do not have even the means to ask the being they are about to bring upon earth whether it liked to come or whether it was in accord with their destiny. It is upon such a body formed by them that they impose, by the force of necessity, an atavism, an environment and later on an education which will be almost always obstacles in his future growth. Therefore I have said here and say it over again (I thought I was clear) that it is a matter of physical parents and physical body, nothing else and that the soul which incarnates, whether it is growing or fully grown has to struggle against the circumstances imposed upon it by the animal birth, struggle to find its true way and find back again its own full self. That is all. Now, if you have some other thing to ask; nobody has anything to say ?
Is it possible for the father and the mother to bring to birth …to ask for the soul they want ?
Ask ? For that they must have an occult knowledge,
which they generally don’t have. But in any case, what is possible is not to do
the thing like an animal driven by instinct or desire, unwillingly most often
but to do it instead with a will and aspiration;
Page-11 they must put themselves in a condition of aspiration, almost of prayer so that the being they are going to build may be a form suitable for embodying a soul—a soul they are able to call down to incarnate in that form. I have known people—they were not many, such things do not happen often, still I have known some people who chose special circumstances, prepared themselves by concentration and meditation and a special aspiration, and sought to bring down into the body they were about to form an exceptional being. In certain countries of ancient ages, and even now, the woman who is about to have a child is placed under special conditions of beauty and peace and ease, under very harmonious physical conditions so that the child may be formed under the best conditions possible. This is evidently what should be done, for it is within the measure of human possibility. Human beings are sufficiently developed for the thing not to be quite exceptional. And yet it is quite exceptional, because very few think of it, while there are innumerable people who produce children without even wanting it. That is what I wished to say. It is therefore possible to call down a soul, but then one must have a little consciousness oneself and then one must seek to do what one does in the best conditions. It is very rare, but it is possible.
When a body is formed, is the soul incarnating there obliged to incarnate in that body ? I do not understand the question very well.
The formation of the body depends wholly upon a man and a woman; but is the soul that manifests in the child, in the body that is forming, obliged to manifest in that body ?
You mean whether the soul can
choose between different bodies ?
Page-12
Yes. Of course, it is very exceptional, in spite of everything, in this formidable human mass for a conscious soul to take a body according to its will. It is a very rare fact. I have already told you that when a soul is conscious, fully formed and wants to take a body, generally it seeks from its psychic domain to see a corresponding psychic light somewhere upon the earth. Also, during its previous incarnation, before it passed away, before it left the earthly atmosphere, the soul, as the result of the experience it has had in the life that has terminated, generally chooses more or less (not in all details but on the whole) the conditions of its future life. But these are exceptional cases. For ourselves, it may be, we might speak of this, but for the majority, the vast majority of human beings, even among those who are educated, the question does not arise at all. What comes is a psychic being in formation, more or less formed and here there are all the stages of formation from the spark becoming a little light up to the fully formed being and that extends over thousands of years. This ascent of the soul to become a conscious being having its own will, capable of deciding the choice of its life, takes thousands of years.
So you want to speak of a soul that would say "No, I
refuse this body, I am going to look for another" … I do not say that it is
impossible—everything is possible. In fact, there are cases of still-born
children : it means there was no soul to incarnate in them. But that may be for
other reasons also, for reasons of malformation only, one cannot say. I do not
say that the thing is impossible, but generally when a conscious and free soul
chooses to take a body again on earth, even before the birth it works upon that
body. It has therefore no reason for not accepting even the inconveniences that
may be due to the ignorance of the parents; for it has chosen the place, because
of a reason that is not a reason of ignorance, it has seen a light there—it may
be simply the light of a possibility, but there was a light and it is for that
that it came there. So, it is all right to say "Ah, no, it does not please me",
but where could it go to choose something else that might please
Page-13 it. It may be done. I do not say that it is impossible, but it does not happen very often; for when the soul looks down from the psychic domain upon earth and chooses the place of its next birth, it chooses with enough diso :imination and is not likely to make a gross blunder. It happens also that a soul takes up a body because it has already started on the way. The starting may be due to many reasons. For children who die very young, in a few days or weeks, the reason may be something like that. It is said also that the soul needed just a little experience to terminate its formation, so it had a life of a few weeks and then departed. All is possible. To tell the history of the soul it would need as many stories as are needed to tell the history of man. So to decide arbitrarily, "It is like this and it is not like that, this happens and that does not happen", is childishness. Everything can happen. There are cases, some more frequent than others, you can generalise, but you can never say, "This is not possible, and it is always like this or always like that". Things do not happen in this way. But in any case, yes, in any case, even in the very best of cases, even when the soul comes consciously, even when it has consciously taken part in the formation of the physical body, so long as the body is formed in the usual animal way, you cannot prevent the soul from having to struggle and correct all the things that come from this human animality.
The parents have necessarily a special formation, they
are in a specially good or bad health; even putting the things at their best,
the parents have a mass of atavism, habits and formations in the subconscient
and even in the consciousness which are the result of their own birth, the
environment in which they lived and the life they have had; and even if they are
remarkable people they have a quantity of things which are altogether contrary
to the true psychic life—even the very best, even the most conscious among them.
Furthermore, there are all the things that are to come. Even if one takes good
deal of pains for the education of one’s children, they come into contact with
all kinds of people who will
Page-14 have an influence over them, particularly when they are very young; these influences enter into the subconscient and one has to struggle against that later on. I repeat : even in the best of cases you are compelled, because of the way in which the body is formed now, to meet innumerable difficulties that come more or less from the subconscient and which rise to the surface and against which one must struggle in order to be completely free and develop normally. * * * III
Sri Aurobindo has written: "Andyet there is in the heart or behind it a profounder mystic light…"* What is this mystic light ? It is love. After that, Sri Aurobindo writes : "which, if not what we call intuition—-for that, though not of the mind, yet descends through the mind—has yet a direct touch upon the Truth and is nearer to the Divine than the human intellect in its pride of knowledge". What does Sri Aurobindo mean? It is not intuition, it is light, it is knowledge through love, understanding through love. Because intuition belongs to the intellect, in its expression at any rate, whereas the other thing is a kind of direct knowledge, almost by identity which comes from love.
* The Synthesis of Yoga Chapter V Page-15
What is this "inner oracle" of which Sri Aurobindo speaks? Oracle ? It is the power of divination, foresight, understanding of symbols—it is in the psychic being. The prophets, for example do not prophesy with their mind, but by a contact direct, beyond the emotions and feelings. Sri Aurobindo even says that the Vedas, among others, were not written with the mind, they did not come from the head. The form of the hymn surged spontaneously out of the psychic being, with the words.
If one is in contact with one’s psychic being, does it mean that one has this power ? More or less yes. The more perfect the contact the greater is the power. It also depends on the external possibilities of the being. But I have already explained it to you several times. I have told you that when you are in contact with your psychic being, certain faculties develop spontaneously. For example, people who have no intellectual education can have all on a sudden quite a remarkable power of expression which comes like that, spontaneously, through an inner contact with the psychic being.
If the heart can serve for a more direct knowledge, then what is the role of the intellect as an intermediary of knowledge. The mind is not an instrument for knowledge.
But it can utilise knowledge in order to organise
action. And that is its true role—the formation and organisation of action. It
is mind that puts in order the different elements of inspiration.
Page-16 If it confined itself solely to this role, receiving inspirations from above or from the mystic centre of the soul, formulating simply the plan of action in its broad outlines or in small details, whether for the smallest things of life or for the biggest organisations of earth, it would fully carry out its function. You feel that very well, when you want to organise your life, for example. There is an intellectual faculty which immediately puts each thing in its place, makes a plan and organises. But the knowledge does not come from the mind; it comes from the mystic depths of the soul or from a higher consciousness—and the mind concentrates it in the physical world and organises it in order to give a basis for action. The mind has yet another use, when you are in contact with your reason, with the rational centre of the intellect; for pure reason exercises a powerful control on all vital impulses. All that comes from the vital world can, with the help of reason, be utilised in a disciplined and organised action. Only it should be at the service of some other thing, of a higher ideal or of the divine consciousness and not be satisfied with itself. These are the two functions of the mind : it is a force for control, an instrument for control and it is a power for organisation. That is its true place.
Is it through love alone that one can realise the Divine ? Yes, my child, certainly. It is even the most direct way. You can realise the Divine, that is to say, identify yourself with the Divine, become fully conscious of the Divine, be an instrument of the Divine; but naturally, you do not realise the integral yoga, for your realisation is along a single line.
But without mental development, you cannot express the Divine ?
You cannot express
it intellectually, but you can express it in
Page-17 action, you can express it in your feelings, you can express it in your life.
Sometimes, when you have depression, it lasts long; but when you have a joy that is not ordinary, it does not last. Yes, it is true. Then what should one do in order to make it last ? But it is not the same part of the being that has the depression and the joy. You are confusing delight with pleasure, pleasure which belongs to the vital, it is a very fugitive thing; and in life, life as it is now there are more occasions for displeasure than for pleasure. Pleasure is simply an agreeable sensation and it is an extremely fugitive thing, you cannot hold it long, because if the same vibration of pleasure continues a little long, not only it gets blunted, but becomes unpleasant or even repugnant—yet it is exactly the same vibration. Then quite naturally it comes and it goes. But if you speak of delight, it is altogether different—it is a kind of warmth, an illumination in the heart (you can have delight in the head also), a blissful illumination. That is a virtue that has not yet reached the state of full development. Yet delight is there, constantly in the truth of the being, in the reality of the being, in your true self, in your soul, in your psychic being, delight is present constantly. That has nothing to do with pleasure, it is a kind of inner felicity.
But you are rarely in a
condition to feel it, unless you have become fully conscious of your psychic
being. That is why when it comes, it is fugitive, for the necessary
psychological condition is not fulfilled. On the other hand, you are almost
constandy in your ordinary vital state where the least unpleasant thing creates
very
Page-18 spontaneously depression—depression if you are weak, or revolt, if you are strong. Any desire not satisfied, any impulse that knocks against an obstacle, any unpleasant contact with outside, creates very easily and very spontaneously a depression or a revolt; because it is the normal state of things—normal in present life. The only thing that can be lasting is delight, if you enter into contact with the truth of your being, because that contains this delight permanently.
But there is a double action in the heart, that of pure emotion and that of vital impulse. How is this mixture possible ? Because both have their seat in the heart, is it not so ? Not at the same spot. It is not our physical heart that is referred to, it is the heart centre (Mother points here to the middle of the chest). But there are various depths. The more you come to the surface the more it is mixed up naturally with vital impulses, even with purely physical reactions, purely physical sensations. The deeper you go, the less the mixture. And if you go sufficiently deep, you find behind it the absolutely pure feeling. It is a question of depth. But you are thrown outward all the time; all the time you five in such a superficial sensation, that it is as if you were almost outside yourself. The moment you want to observe yourself a little, control yourself a little, simply know what is happening, you are obliged to withdraw, pull inward something that is there constantly on the surface. It is this surface consciousness which receives all the external contacts, which puts you in contact with similar vibrations coming from others. And that occurs almost outside yourself. That is the constant dispersal of the ordinary consciousness.
Take, for example, a movement, an inspiration coming from the
psychic depths of the being (for, there is a kind of inspiration coming from the
depths even in those who are not conscious of
Page-19 their psychic). It is obliged to come to the surface, if it is to make itself perceived. And as it comes nearer to the surface, it gets mixed up with all kinds of things that have nothing to do with it, but which seek to make use of it. As for example all the desires and passions of the vital, these, as soon as a force from the depths rises to the surface, capture it for their own satisfaction. Or else in the case of people who live in the mind and want to "understand" their experience, weigh it, judge it, it is the mind that captures the inspiration or the force that rises up, for its own benefit, for its own satisfaction and that mixes up and spoils everything. And it is constantly like that, constantly do the surface movements introduce themselves into the inspiration of the depths and deform, veil, soil and spoil it completely, so much so that one can no longer recognise it.
Why don’t these external impulses get themselves transformed by contact with the inner inspiration instead of destroying everything ? Excuse me, there is a reciprocal movement and that depends on the proportion. All these things are not irremediable, because, otherwise there would be no hope of progress. The inner inspiration acts necessarily, it is not wholly absorbed or destroyed—it is not that. It acts, but it gets mixed up, it loses its purity and something of its original power. At the end, something still remains and the result depends on the proportion of the forces, and this proportion is very different in different individuals. For some, when the inner psychic makes a decision and sends out a force, it is quite visible, it is visibly a psychic inspiration. Sometimes one can see as though a shadow is passing which comes from the mind or the vital; but they are unimportant interventions and are not able to change truly the nature of the psychic inspiration if they are not allowed to get the upper hand.
A moment comes when a deliberate call is made on the
inner inspiration and you submit to it and when it can pass through
Page-20 almost wholly pure and make you act according to the Divine Will
It is said : "Follow your soul and not your mind that leaps at appearances…" How to practise that in everyday life ? It is a purely individual question. The first condition is just this, to receive the inspirations from the soul—of which we were speaking just now—because if you do not receive them, how can you follow your soul ? You must be a Utile conscious of your soul. And when the inspirations come, naturally you must obey them instead of obeying your reasoning intellect. But how to do it, by what process, is a purely personal matter. Each one must find his own procedure and for each one the procedure is different. Everything depends on the degree to which you are conscious of the inspirations from your soul and the degree of identity you have with it. You cannot give one single remedy for everybody in the world. * * * IV
Sri Aurobindo has said that one must find a light within, then surrender to the divine Shakti. Now that the Supramental has come down, will it be easier ?
Well, that is the light within, now. What is the
difficulty ? Where do you see any objection or contradiction ? What is your
difficulty ?
Page-21
What is the effect of this descent ? Wait for it to happen in you and you will know. Very well. Imagine that in a dark room you have put a kerosene lamp, that burns by kerosene as in other times—some sixty years ago there used to be kerosene lamps in the rooms instead of candles; it was a little better, but it came to be about the same. At that time you lighted your room by that, then suddenly someone invents the means of having light by electricity. So your kerosene lamp is replaced by a beautiful electric lamp which lights ten times better. What is your difficulty, your problem ? You had always a fight to light your room—your room inside —but instead of a kerosene lamp, it has become now an electric lamp. That is all. You do not understand ? It is not very difficult to understand. Can one see this light ? See ? well, enter into the room, you will see it. How to enter into the room ? You take a key and open the door. Or sit down in front of the door until you have found the word, the idea or the force that opens, as in the stories of the Arabian Nights. It is not a joke, it is very serious. You must sit down before the door and then concentrate until you have found the key or the word or the power to open it.
If you do not try, the door does not open by itself. Perhaps
after thousands of years it might, but you want to do it immediately—then ? To
do it immediately, you must sit down with obstinacy before the door till you
have found the means. It may be a key, it may be a word, it may be a force, does
not matter what, and you remain in front of the door until it opens.
Page-22
You do not think of any other thing. You think only of your door. Is there no keyhole by which the light escapes ? Keyhole ! What does that mean ? A slit by which the light gets out ?…Perhaps it does get out, but perhaps you o not see it ! It does get out. But that is another problem; you must open your eyes. You must learn to open your eyes, to look. Very small children do not see; very small animals too do not see, young kittens do not see. They take some hours or some days before they can see. You must learn to see. V A constant self-widening
Since the end of February I have been
receiving a considerable number of questions : "How the Supermind is going to
act, what we must do to receive it, under what form it will manifest" ? I have
answered as best as I could. But it happens that in the book On the Veda
by Sri Aurobindo, there is a footnote on a certain page and in this
note he has given his answer to the questions. I always tell people, if you take
a little trouble and read what Sri Aurobindo has written, many of your questions
will become useless, because he has already answered them. However it is
possible they have neither the time, nor the patience,
Page-23 nor the will nor anything necessary; they do not read. Books appear, they are even, I believe, generously distributed, but very few people read them. Let it be, here is Sri Aurobindo’s answer. Try to think over and if you have a special question to put, I will answer. Listen:
"The supramental world has to be formed or created in us by the Divine Will as the result of a constant expansion and self-perfecting". (On the Veda, p. 463, note 2) That is to say, for you to hope to receive, utilise and form in you a supramental being and consequently a supramental world, there must be in you first of all an expansion of the consciousness and a constant self-perfection, not to have impulsions, a little aspiration, a little effort, then fall back again into somnolence—it must be the constant idea of the being, the constant will of the being, the constant effort of the being, the constant preoccupation of the being. If you happen to remember for five minutes per day, that there is something in the universe like the supramental force and that after all it would be good if it manifested in me, then for the rest of the time you think of something else, then there is not much chance for it to come and work seriously in you. Sri Aurobindo says it very clearly and precisely. He does not say that you will do it, he says it is the Divine Will. So don’t come and say, "Ah, I cannot do it myself". You are not asked to do it, but you must have in your being a sufficient aspiration and adhesion for the expansion of the being, the expansion of the consciousness to be possible. Because to tell the truth, everybody is small, small, small, so small that there is no room to put the supramental. It is so small that it is already filled up with all the small ordinary human movements. You must widen it to a large extent in order to make room for the movements of the Supramental.
And then there must be an aspiration for progress, not to be
satisfied with what one is, as one is, with what one does, with
Page-24 what one knows or believes that one knows, but to have a constant aspiration towards something more, something better, towards a greater light, a wider consciousness, a truth more true, a good more universal. And over and above that, a good will that never fails. This cannot be done in a few days. Besides, I believe I took, from this point of view, my precautions and when I announced that now it was given to earth to receive the supramental force for manifesting it, it did not mean that the manifestation would be evident instantaneously and that everybody would find himself suddenly transported to the peak of light and possibility and realisation, without any effort. I said at the very moment that it would not be like that; I even said that it would take quite a long time. However, people complained that its coming has not made things easier and that even in certain cases it became more difficult. I am very sorry, but I am helpless. Because it is not the fault of the Supramental Force. It is the fault of the way in which it is received. For I know cases where the aspiration was truly sincere and the collaboration complete and where many things that had appeared before very difficult became at once infinitely more easy. But there is a great difference always between a kind of mental curiosity which plays with ideas and words and a true aspiration of the being which is the cause why truly it is that that counts essentially and nothing else—this aspiration, this inner will which is the cause why nothing has any value except that, that realisation, nothing counts except that and you have no other reason for existing, no other reason for living than that. And yet it is that which you must have, if you want the Supramental to show itself to the naked eye. Note I am not speaking of a physical transformation, for you all know that you do not expect to become overnight luminous, plastic, to lose your weight, freely move from place to place, to appear at a dozen of places at the same time and so on.. ..No, I believe you are reasonable enough not to expect all that to happen immediately—that will take some time. Page-25 After all, it is simply the working of the consciousness, simply a certain self-mastery, a control over the body, a direct knowledge of things, a capacity for identification and a clear vision instead of this cloudy and hazy vision which sees only the appearance which is so deceptive, so unreal, so fossilised. A more direct perception, an inner perception, that must come; it will come soon if you are prepared. Simply to have this sensation that the air one breathes is more living, that the force one has is more durable; and instead of groping always like one blind to know what is to he done, to have a precise, clear, inner intimation : it is this, not that, this. These are the things that can be acquired immediately, if one is prepared. * * * VI
It is said that if you see a shooting star and if at the same moment you aspire for something, this aspiration is fulfilled in the course of the year. Is this true ? The aspiration must be formulated during the time the star is visible, and it does not last long. But if an aspiration could be formulated in such a short time, it means that the aspiration is present there all the time in front of the consciousness. (I do not speak naturally of external things, I speak of a spiritual aspiration). And necessarily the thing that dominates your consciousness can realise itself very quickly. I had an occasion to make this experiment, exactly that. At the very moment when the star was passing, out came from the consciousness, "I aspire that the body should realise the divine union".
And before the end of the year it was done. But it was not
because of the star ! it was because it dominated
Page-26 the whole of my consciousness—I was thinking only of that, I was wanting only that, I was acting only for that. And then this thing that takes generally a lifetime (it is said that the minimum io 35 years !) was done before the end of twelve months. But I was thinking only of that. And it is because I was thinking only of that that just during the lightning passage of the star I could formulate my aspiration —not merely a vague impression—formulate in exact words as "I aspire that the body should realise the divine union !" Therefore it is not the star which is the important thing, it is the aspiration. There is no necessity for a shooting star to be there in order to realise quickly ! What is necessary is that the entire will should be concentrated on one point. * * * VII
Why do bad thoughts come ? Did I not tell you why bad thoughts come ? These are questions as old as the world. I have answered them hundreds of times, however it happens that nothing entered into you. There are as many reasons as there are bad thoughts ! Each one comes from a particular reason : it may be through affinity, it may be through teasing, it may be because you call them, because you put yourself in a condition liable to attack, it may be all that together and many more things still. Bad thoughts come because there is some corresponding part in you; otherwise you might see something passing, before you, but it will not enter into you. I suppose the question means, why, all on a sudden, you think something bad. Because the steps are very different.
I have already explained to you that the mental atmosphere is
worse than a public place when there is a crowd there : an in-
Page-27 numerable quantity of ideas, thoughts of every kind and form intermingle in such a complicated tangle that it is impossible to distinguish anything precise; your head is within that, your mind is still more within, it bathes within there as you bathe in the sea. And all that comes, goes, passes, turns, knocks, enters, goes out. If you were conscious of the mental atmosphere in which you live, evidently, it would be something maddening ! I think the cerebral limits of each person are quite necessary, for a long time in life, for they are like a filter. If you are to come out of all that and live wholly in the mental atmosphere as it is, seeing it as it is (it is the same thing with regard to the vital atmosphere also, it is perhaps still more ugly), if you are to live within that, see it as it is, you must be solid, must have a very solid inner compass. At any rate, whether you see it or not, feel it or not, the fact is there, it is like that. So you cannot ask where the bad thoughts come from—they are everywhere. Why do they come ? Where could they go ? You are there within them. What guides this filter of consciousness, what makes you conscious of some bad thoughts and not of others is your inner attitude, your inner affinities, inner habits (I am speaking of the mind, not of the psychic), your training, your cerebral development etc.; that is the kind of filter that has been formed by your ego and through which some thoughts pass and some do not, automatically. And that is how the nature of the thoughts you receive may be for you an indication, quite weighty, as to the nature of your character —it may be for you very subconscient, because we are not accustomed to know ourselves truly, but it is an indication of your general tendency. To say the thing in a somewhat simplified manner, if, for example, you take an optimist, to him generally optimistic ideas will come, to a pessimist it will be pessimistic ideas (I say in a general way); to a man of rebellious nature, it will be rebellious ideas; to a sheepish man it will be sheepish ideas (admitting of coarse that sheep have ideas)! That is the general normal condition.
Now if you happen to have decided to make some progress
and you enter upon the path of Yoga, then a new factor intervenes.
Page-28 The moment you want to progress, immediately you knock against the resistance of all that does not want to progress in you and around you; and this resistance naturally is translated into corresponding thoughts. Supposing you wanted to progress on the plane of attachment to food, for example, then, there will come to you constantly ideas specially concerning food, v. hat you should take, what you should not take, how you should take, how you should not take; these ideas will come to you and they will appear to you quite natural. And the more you tell yourself within you : "Oh, how I would like to be freed from all that, what an obstacle these preoccupations are to my progress!", the more will they come, quietly, until the moment when you have really made the inner progress and risen to a level of consciousness from where you look at these things from a height and then put them each in its place—which is not a very big place in the universe. And so on for all things. Therefore your occupations and your affinities put you in relation, in an almost contradictory manner, not only with ideas which have an affinity- and a relation with your way of being, but with those that are contrary. And if you do not take care from the very beginning to have a discriminating attitude, you will be transformed into a field of mental battle. "If you can rise to a higher level, simply into the speculative mental region which does not altogether belong to the ordinary physical mind, you will be able to see this play, this struggle, all this conflict, all these contradictions like a curiosity that does not touch you, does not affect you. If you rise to a still higher level and see the goal towards which you want to go, then little by little there will come to you the discernment between the ideas that are favourable to your progress, which you keep and those that are in contradiction to this progress, which harm it, alter it; and from the height you will have the power to separate them quietly without being wrongly affected. But if you remain there, at that level, in the midst of this confusion and conflict, you very much run the risk of getting a headache !
The best thing to do is to occupy yourself practically
with
Page-29 something that compels you to a special concentration : study, a work or occupation of the physical body which needs attention, anything that forces you to concentrate on what you are doing and no more be a prey to those ramblings. But if by mischance you remain there and look at the thing, then surely, as I said, you will have a headache; for it is a question that is to be solved either by a descent into the practical life, by a concentration on a practical effort or by rising above and looking from above at all this chaos to put order into it and regulate it. But you must never remain on the same level, it is a plane which is worth nothing, neither for physical health nor for moral health. VIII
Sri Aurobindo has written : "…it may be safely affirmed that no solution offered can be anything but provisional until a supramental Truth-Consciousness is reached by which the appearances of things are put in their place and their essence revealed and that in them which derives straight from the spiritual essence. In the meanwhile our only safety is to find a guiding law of spiritual experience—or else to liberate a light within that can lead us on the way until that greater direct Truth-Consciousness is reached above us or born within us. For all else in us that is only outward, all that is not a spiritual sense or seeing, the constructions, representations or conclusions of the intellect, the suggestions or instigations of the Life-Force, the positive necessities of physical things are sometimes half-lights, sometimes false lights that can at best only serve for a while Page-30
or serve a little and for the rest either detain or confuse us…" Will you explain this to us ? All these things are sometimes a mixed light, that is to say, attenuated knowledge, knowledge mixed with ignorance, and at times they are a false light, not knowledge at all. They are simply ideas, conceptions, ways of seeing, ways of feeling—all these things that are considered as knowledge in the ordinary human consciousness. And the needs of the body, are they too false lights ? Sri Aurobindo tells us that even the physical needs which are generally considered imperative and about which it is said that they carry their truth in themselves, are merely a partial light, that is to say, a semblance of knowledge or even a false thing. This goes right against all modern ideas, no doubt. People have always the impression that what they call needs of the body are an absolute law and if they are not obeyed, if they are refused, a grave error is committed against the body and one will have to suffer the consequences. But these needs are a very partial light, it is only a way of seeing the things or it is quite false, not a light at all. If you study the problem closely enough, you will find to what extent the so-called needs of the body depend on the mental attitude that you have towards them. For example, the need to eat. There are people that literally die of hunger if they do not eat for eight days. There are others who do it purposely, who take fasting as a principle of Yoga, as a necessity of Yoga. For them, at the end of the eight days fast, the body is as healthy as in the beginning and sometimes better.
Lastly, for all these things it is a question of proportion, of
measure. Evidently, you cannot live always without eating. It is also evident
that the idea you have of the need to eat is not true. This is in fact quite a
subject for study : "The importance of the mental attitude with regard to the
body".
Page-31 Sri Aurobindo does not admit that the needs of the body carry their truth in themselves : he says, "It is not like that, it is only an idea that you have, an impression. It is not a true thing that carries its truth in itself."
And is morality useful ? Has it not helped in increasing our consciousness ? That depends on people. There are people who are helped by it, and there are people who are not helped at all. Morality is a thing altogether artificial and arbitrary, and in the majority of cases, among the best, it puts a check to the spiritual effort by a kind of self-satisfaction that you are in the right way, that you are a good man, that you are doing your duty, fulfilling all the moral necessities of life. And you are so self-satisfied that you do not move any more. It is very difficult for a virtuous man to enter on the path of God—it has been said very often, but it is quite true, because the virtuous man is very self-satisfied; he has the impression that he has realised what he had to realise—he has no aspiration any more nor even this elementary humility which makes one will for progress. A so-called sattwic man is generally one who is very comfortably lodged in his virtue and never thinks of coming out of it.1 That puts you millions of leagues away from the divine realisation. What helps, so long as you have not found the light within, is to make a certain number of rules for oneself which naturally must not be altogether rigid and fixed, but should be sufficiendy precise to prevent you from going completely away from the right path or from making irreparable errors—errors the consequences of which you undergo throughout your life. For that it is good to set up a few principles in yourself, which however should be in accordance with each one’s nature.
1 According to Indian
terminology the sattwic man is he who is moved by the principle of knowledge,
equality and light in opposition to the Rajasic man who lives by his desires and
passions, and in opposition also to the tamasic man who lives in inertia and
obscurity.
Page-32 If you adopt a collective social rule, at once you submit to the slavery of the collective rule; and that prevents you almost radically from making any effort towards transformation.
What is this spiritual or supramental law of which Sri Aurobindo speaks ? It is the truth of each being. Each being carries in himself his spiritual law, his supramental law. It is not the same for all. For every one it is the truth of his being, that is to say, the thing he must realise in the universe and the place he jnustoccupy in the world. That is the truth of his being. * * * IX
It is said : "the more you give, the more you receive". Is it applicable to physical energy also ? Can one undertake a physical work which appears to be beyond one’s capacity ? If you did not spend you would never receive. The great force for the child to grow, to develop is precisely this that he spends without counting. Naturally when you spend you must recover; but what the child cannot do one day, he will do it the next day. If you do not spend beyond the limit you have attained, you will never progress. People who do physical culture, for example, if they make some progress, it is precisely because by degrees they surpass, go beyond what they could do. The whole thing is a question of measure. The time given to recuperation should be proportionate to the time given to expenditure.
But if you stick to what you can do at a given moment—
first of all, it is impossible, for if you do not progress you go back.
Page-33 …Therefore you must always make a little effort to do more than you did, try a little more, a little better than what you did the previous day or the previous minute—then you are on the ascending path. Only the more you increase your effort, the more you must increase your capacity to receive, your occasions for receiving. If you want to develop your muscles, for example, want them to make a progressive effort, you must at the same time do what is necessary—massage, hydrotherapy etc. to increase their capacity for receptivity. And rest. But the rest should not mean sinking in the in-conscient—that generally tires more than it gives rest—but a consciqus rest, a concentration in which you open yourself and absorb the universal forces. The limits of the possibilities of the body are so elastic ! People who undergo a rational, scientific and methodical training can arrive at absolutely staggering results. They get from their body things which, for the ignorant and the untrained, are absolutely miraculous, simply because they trained themselves methodically. But certainly they should progressively surpass what they can do, not only from the point of view of perfection but from the point of view of power. And if you are afraid of doing too much, you are sure to go down again and lose your capacities. * * *
X
Why does one get up tired in the morning, and what should one do to have better sleep ? If you get up tired in the morning, it is because of tamas, nothing else, a formidable mass of tamas; I discovered it when I began to do the yoga of the body. It is inevitable so long as the body is not transformed.
You must lie flat on your back and relax all the muscles and
Page-34 nerves—it is an easy thing to learn—to be like what I call a piece of cloth on the bed, nothing else remains. If you can do that with the mind also, you get rid of all stupid dreams that make you more tired when you get up than when you went to bed. It is the cellular activity of the brain that continues without control, and that tires much. Therefore a total relaxation, a kind of complete calm, without tension in which everything is stopped. But this is only the beginning. Afterwards, a self-giving as total as possible, of all, from top to bottom, from the outside to the inmost, and an eradication also as total as possible of all resistance of the ego, and you begin repeating your mantra—your mantra, if you have one or any other word which has power over you, a word leaping from the heart, spontaneously, like a prayer and that sums up your aspiration. After having repeated a few times, if you are accustomed to it, you get into trance. And from that trance you pass into sleep. The trance lasts as long as it should and quite naturally, spontaneously you pass into sleep. But when you come back from this sleep, you remember everything, the sleep was but a continuation of the trance. Fundamentally the sole purpose of sleep is to enable the body to assimilate the effect of the trance so that the effect may be accepted everywhere, to enable the body to do its natural function of the night and eliminate the toxins. And when it wakes up, there is no trace of heaviness which comes from sleep, the effect of the trance continues. Even for those who have never been in trance, it is good to repeat a mantra, a word, a prayer before going into sleep. But there must be a life in the words, I do not mean an intellectual signification, nothing of that kind, but a vibration. And on the body its effect is extraordinary : it begins to vibrate, vibrate, vibrate…and quietly you let yourself go as though you wanted to get into sleep. The body vibrates more and more and still more and away you go. That is the cure for tamas.
It is tamas which causes bad sleep. There are two kinds of
bad sleep : the sleep that makes you heavy, dull, as though you
Page-35 lose all the effect of the effort you put in during the preceding day; and the sleep that exhausts you as if you were passing your time in fight. I have noticed that if you cut your sleep into slices (it is simply a habit to form) the nights become better. That is to say, you must be able to come back to your normal consciousness and aspiration at fixed intervals—come back to the call of the consciousness….But for that you must not make use of an alarm bell. When you are in trance, it is not good to be shaken out of it. When you are about to go into sleep, you can make a formation and say "I shall wake up at such an hour (you do that very well when you are a child). For the first stretch of sleep you must count at least three hours; for the last one hour is sufficient. But the first one must be three hours at the minimum. On the whole, you have to remain in bed at least seven hours; in six hours you have not time enough to do much (naturally I am looking from the point of view of sadhana, to make the nights useful). To make use of the nights is an excellent thing, it has a double effect: a negative effect, it prevents you from falling backward, losing whatever you have gained—that, indeed, is painful—and a positive effect, you make some progress, you continue your progress. You make use of the night, then there is no trace of fatigue any more. Two things you must eliminate : falling into the torpor of the inconscience, with all these things of the subconscient and of the inconscient that rise up, invade you, enter into you; and a vital and mental superactivity where you pass your time in fighting, literally—terrible battles. People come out of that state bruised, as if they had received blows—and they did receive them, then it is not "as if" ! And I see only one way, change the nature of sleep.
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