February 7, 1961
(Mother reads the following letter aloud in English, before sending it to a disciple.)
‘You ask me what you must do. It would be better to ask what you must be, because the circumstances and activities in life have not much importance. What is important is our way of reacting towards them.’
This is where it begins….
‘Human nature is such that when you concentrate on your body you fall ill; when you concentrate on your heart and feelings you become unhappy; when you concentrate on the mind you get bewildered.’
(Laughing) And it’s absolutely true!
‘There are two ways of getting out of this precarious condition.
‘One is very arduous: it is a severe and continuous tapasya. It is the way of the strong who are predestined for it.
‘The other is to find something worth concentrating upon that diverts your attention from your small, personal self. The most effective is a big ideal, but there are innumerable things that enter into this category. Most commonly, people choose marriage, because it is the most easily available (Mother laughs). To love somebody and to love children makes you busy and compels you to forget your own self a little. But it is rarely successful, because love is not a common thing.
‘Others turn to art, others to science; some choose a social or a political life, etc., etc.
‘But here also, all depends on the sincerity and the endurance with which the chosen path is followed. Because here also, there are difficulties and obstacles to surmount.
‘So, in life, nothing comes without an effort and a struggle.
‘And if you are not ready for the effort and the struggle, then it is better to accept the fact that life will be dull and unsatisfactory, and submit quietly to this fact.’
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That’s for the complainers.
(long silence)
And it’s absolutely true – true at each stage, on all levels. Whatever level you have attained, even the very highest, if you concentrate on that [the body], it is finished! And all the difficulties begin, you know, with that very concentration that tries to draw down Light and Power – yogic concentration itself.
So it would seem … that if one wants to use his individuality, his body, to transform the whole – that is, if one wants to use his bodily presence to act upon the universal corporeal substance – there’s no end to it. No end to the difficulties, no end to the battle … BATTLE!
(silence)
Those who try to lead a spiritual life have always been compared to warriors (there are classic writings on this subject), and one must truly be a fighter – ‘fighter’ is more exact than ‘warrior’ because you wage war against no one: everything wages war against you! Everything … (Mother makes a gesture like an avalanche falling upon her) and with such savage opposition! …
Ah, well….
(silence)
You see, as long as there are currents swirling within you – swirling in the mind or the vital – you tell yourself that these currents are the cause of all the difficulties. But when there is nothing any longer? … When there is a serene and immutable peace … but still you are relentlessly hounded – oh, with such ferocity! … You cannot imagine.
(silence)
Since mid-November, this body has been living through every possible difficulty, one after another, one after another – sometimes all together – with relentless violence!
It has been good for it (not externally, but inwardly, for its state of consciousness: the body-consciousness), it has done the body some good, but…. Now it’s like this (Mother opens her hands in a gesture of total surrender). For each blow it receives (it’s a bludgeoning, my child!), for each blow, it remains like this (same gesture). Yesterday, to make it happy, I wrote down something like this (concerning its latest difficulty): If this present difficulty is
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useful … (it’s the body addressing the Lord, and the Lord…. it’s a perpetual adoration: all the cells vibrate, vibrate with the joy of Love; yet despite that … ), if this or that difficulty is useful for Your Work – so be it. But if it is an effect of my stupidity (it’s the body speaking), if it’s an effect of my own stupidity, then I beseech You to cure me of this stupidity as quickly as possible.
It doesn’t ask to be cured of the illness! It doesn’t ask, it is ready; ‘All right,’ it says. ‘As long as I can keep going, I will keep going. As long as I can last, I will last. But that’s not what I’m asking for: I am asking to be cured of my stupidity.’ I believe this is what enables it to … yes, what gives it the necessary endurance.
That’s enough. I said I wouldn’t say anything! You see how you are…. When I’m up in my room, I always tell myself, ‘Not a word today!’ I don’t want to start saying unpleasant things. And then….
Unpleasant?
Yes. It is better to speak of victory than … (Mother laughs) to speak of difficulties!
(silence)
When we used to discuss all these things and the difficulties of the path, Sri Aurobindo told me (he was comparing his body to mine): ‘I don’t have the stuff of such endurance. I was not cut out like that – your body is solid!’ (gesture)
What trials it has gone through! … And it’s so docile, so docile, it doesn’t complain.
So, my child, if your body has some trouble, just tell yourself they are sympathy pains (Mother laughs), then you won’t be troubled. That’s all.
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