SECTION FOUR
SADHANA AND MENTAL DEVELOPMENT
Sadhana and Mental Development (1)
FOR one who wants to practise sadhana, sadhana must come first—reading and mental development can only be subordinate things.
25-12-1936
(2)
Mental development may or may not help sadhana —if the mind is too intellectually developed in certain rationalistic lines, it may hinder.
I DON'T know that it (mental work) helps the sadhana and I don't quite understand what is meant by the Page-107 phrase. What is a fact is that mental work like physical work can be made a part of the sadhana,— not as a rival to the sadhana or as another activity with equal rights and less selfish and egoistic than, seeking the Divine.
THERE is no obligation on any one to be engrossed in mental pursuits. Sadhana must be done by one's own choice, not by rule or compulsion.
4-1-1936
(1)
IF the power to meditate long is there, a sadhaka will naturally do it and care little for reading—unless he has reached the stage when everything is part of the Yogic consciousness because that is permanent. Sadhana is the aim of a sadhaka, not mental development. But if he has spare time, those who have the mental turn will naturally spend it in reading or study of some kind.
25-12-1936 Page-108 (2)
Then how is it (meditation) necessary for all, if some are asked not to do it? Much meditation is for those who can meditate much. It does not follow that because much meditation is good, therefore nobody should do anything else.
YOUR objection was to learning languages and especially French as inimical to peace and silence because it meant activity. The mind when it is not in meditation or in complete silence, is always active with something or another—with its own ideas or desires or with other people or with things or with talking, etc. None of these is any less inactivity than learning languages. Now you shift Page-109 your ground and say it is because owing to their study they leave no time for meditation that you object. That is absurd, for if people want to meditate, they will arrange their time of study for that; if they don't want to meditate, the reason must be something else than study and if they don't study they will simply go on thinking about "small things". Want of time is not the cause of their no meditation and passion for study is not the cause.
(1)
THAT is absurd. Doing nothing with the mind is not quiet or silence. It is inactivity that keeps the mind thinking mechanically and discursive instead of concentrating on an object—that is all.
6-4-1937
(2)
Keeping the mind without occupation is not the same thing as peace or silence. Page-110
THIS is quite a normal movement. In reading these books you get into touch with the Force behind them and it is this that pushes you into meditation and a corresponding experience.
25-7-1936
IT depends upon the nature of the things read whether they are helpful to the growth of the being or not. No general rule can be made. It cannot be said that poetry or dramas ought or ought not to be read—it depends on the poem and the play —so with the rest.
IT depends; to read many books quickly gives freedom and ease and familiarity with the language. The other method is necessary for thoroughness and accuracy in detail.
14-10-1933 Page-111
I CAN'T give you a more definite answer. Study is of importance only if you study in the right way and with the turn for knowledge and mental discipline.
29-10-1936
Well-trained Intellect and Study
A WELL-TRAINED intellect and study are two different things—there are plenty of people who have read much but have not a well-trained intellect. Inertia can come to anybody, even to the most educated people.
5-10-1936
READING and study are only useful to acquire information and widen one's field of data. But that comes to nothing if one does not know how to discern and discriminate, judge, see what is within and behind things.
9-10-1936 Page-112 Book-knowledge and Intelligence
INTELLIGENCE does not depend on the amount one has read, it is a quality of the mind. Study only gives it material for its work as life also does. There are people who do not know how to read and write who are more intelligent than many highly educated people and understand life and things better. On the other hand, a good intelligence can improve itself by reading because it gets more material to work on and grows by exercise and by having a wider range to move in. But book-knowledge by itself is not the real thing, it has to be used as a help to the intelligence but it is often only a help to stupidity or ignorance— ignorance because knowledge of facts is a poor thing if one cannot see their true significance.
No, not necessarily. It (study of Logic) is a theoretical training. You learn by it some rules of logical thinking. But. the application depends on your own intelligence. In any sphere of knowledge or action a man may be a great theorist but a Page-113 poor executist. A very good military theorist and critic if put in command of an army might very well lose all his battles, not being able to put the theories rightly to the occasion. So a theoretical logician may bungle the problems of thought by want of insight, of quietness of mind or of plasticity in the use of his capacities. Besides, logic is not the whole of thinking; observation, intuition, sympathy, many-sidedness are more important.
1-11-1936
MENTAL training consists of reading, learning about things, acquiring complete and accurate information, training oneself in logical thinking, considering dispassionately all sides of a question, rejecting hasty or wrong inferences and conclusions, learning to look at all things clearly and as a whole.
27-10-1936 Page-114 Sadhana and Learning Languages
ONE does not learn English or French as an aid to the sadhana; it is done for the development of the mind and as part of the activity given to the being. For that purpose learning French is as good as learning English and, if it is properly done, better. Nor is there any reason, if one has the capacity, to limit oneself to one language only.
25-3-1937
Two Ways of Learning a Language
IT depends on what you want to do with the language. If it is only to read the literature, then to learn to read, pronounce and understand accurately is sufficient. If it is a complete mastery one wants, then conversation and writing have to be thoroughly learned in the language.
November 1933 Page-115 Power of Expression in Sadhana
IT is the thinking mind that works out ideas—the externalising mental or physical mind gives them form in words. Probably you have not developed this part sufficiently. The gift of verbal expression is comparatively rare. Most people are either clumsy in expression or if they write abundantly, it is without proper arrangement and style. But this is of no essential importance in sadhana—all that is needed is to convey clearly the perceptions and experiences of the sadhana.
1-1-1934
I NEVER heard that learning logic was necessary for good expression. So far as I know, very few good writers ever bothered about learning that subject.
13-11-1936 Page-116
EXPRESSION is another matter, but Ramakrishna was an uneducated, non-intellectual man, yet his expression of knowledge was so perfect that the biggest intellects bowed down before it.
Way of Receiving Power of Expression
THE power of expression comes by getting into touch with the inner source from which these things come. A calm and silent mind is a great help for the free flow of the power, but it is not indispensable, nor will it of itself bring it.
20-5-1934
The Expressed and the Inexpressible
WHAT is expressed is only a part of what is behind —which remains unexpressed and in the language of the manifestation inexpressible.
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