THE MOTHER

Questions and Answers

Sri Aurobindo Ashram

Pondicherry

 February, i960

Questions and Answers

I

Delight the Creator

In order to make a true self-giving should not one arrive at a rather high degree of spiritual growth ? For, if one leads a life, more or less unconscious, the self-giving can be only more or less mental and it cannot be very real. How has one got to do it ? Is it possible from the very beginning to start with self-giving ?

THAT depends on people. In some the psychic movement, the emotional impulse is stronger than the intellectual understanding. They feel an irresistible attraction for the Divine, without knowing, without the least idea of what that can be, what that represents, without any intellectual notion whatsoever. There is only a kind of impulse, attraction, a need—an inevitable need.

      Such people go very quickly—if, as the result of Grace, they have a mind that does not trouble them, that does not question, does not discuss.

      And what is quite miraculous, to the ordinary conception, is that, as soon as they reach the degree of consecration which identifies them, through their psychic being, with the divine Presence, there comes to them all on a sudden a capacity of expression which was quite unknown to their nature.

       I saw a case in France, long long ago, of a very young girl who had never had either education or training. She was a dancer in the Opera, a very good dancer. As it was the custom she entered

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there at the age of eight, that is to say, quite a child, and instead of learning history and geography and mathematics, she learnt dancing. She did not know, that is, how to express herself; her intelligence was evident but uncultivated. And as such she had been attracted and felt an imperative need to seek the Divine and consecrate herself to Him.

     She began by dancing for His sake and she danced truly in a remarkable way. Then all on a sudden, she wanted to express what she was feeling and started writing letters that were wonderfully poetic. She spoke of astonishing things in an astonishing manner, page after page and with extraordinary ease.

    But something in her pulled her back to the old nature she had left behind, and, as soon as she fell into her ordinary consciousness—the consciousness of the needs of life, the requirements of every moment—all vanished. She could not write a single line any more without making mistakes not only in French, but mistakes in spelling without number. And it was wholly commonplace.

    This proves that when you reach the true consciousness, problems do not exist any more. What you are to be, you become, what you are to know you know and what you are to do, you have the power to do. And all the supposed difficulties disappear immediately.

    In the case of which I am speaking, what pulled her back was not something from herself but something from someone else. Unfortunately this is what happens most often : in life you burden yourself with certain responsibilities and that prevents you from advancing.

    Some have then this emotional impulse. Others understand first. They are very intellectual, they have studied, they know how to play with ideas and words. They would make brilliant speeches on all the philosophies and religions and human conceptions, and they would need perhaps years to advance a single step.

    Because all that happens in the head.

    And many things happen in the head. I have told you very often that the head is like a public place; all kinds of things can enter, go, come, cross and make a great mess there. And it is

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the people who are accustomed to playing with ideas that are the most hampered in going ahead. It is such a beautiful, attractive game, it gives you the impression that you are not quite ordinary, on the level of ordinary life. But it cuts your wings.

      It is the heart that has wings, not the head. Yes, that is the inevitable need. Nothing else counts. That is all, only that.

     And then, after all, you should laugh at these obstacles and difficulties. All that they can do to you, counts for nothing. Time also does not matter. What does it matter if the way is long ? All the longer will you have the delight of the aspiration and consecration and self-giving.

      For that is the only true delight.

      And if this delight fades away, it means that something egoistic —a demand that one calls need—got mixed up with the consecration. Otherwise the delight never goes away.

       It is the first thing that you gain, and it is the last thing that you realise. And it is the sign of the victory.

       So long as you are not able to possess a constant, calm, peaceful, luminous and invariable delight, it means that you have still to work to purify yourself and sometimes to work hard. But that is the sign.

       It is with the sense of separation that pain and suffering, misery and ignorance and all the incapacities have come. And it is with self-giving, self-forgetfulness in a total consecration that suffering will disappear and give place to a Delight that nothing can obscure.

      It is only when this delight is established in this world that it can be truly transformed, then only there will be a new life, a new creation, a new realisation. The delight must first be established in the consciousness, then the material transformation will take place, not before.

       Note that I do not speak of what people call delight, which is not even a caricature of true delight, but rather a diabolical invention to make you lose the way, the delight or joy that comes

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from pleasure, forgetfulness, indifference. What I speak of is a delight that is perfect peace, light without shadow, harmony; Beauty whole and entire and irresistible Power, the Delight that is the Divine Presence itself, in its essence, in its will and in its realisation.

     It is with the Adversary that suffering has come into the world. And it is Delight alone that can conquer it, nothing else can conquer it definitely, finally.

     Delight is the creator, delight is the fulfiller.

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II

Delight alone can conquer

You say Delight alone can conquer the adversary, but to attain to Delight, is it not necessary first to conquer the adversary ?

       You must transcend him, ignore him.

       There is one thing to be done first of all, it is true : it is to free oneself from his influence, but there is a difference between freeing oneself from his influence and conquering him.

       To conquer the adversary is not a small thing; to conquer one must have a greater power than he. But you can free yourself totally from his influence and the moment you are completely freed, the self-giving also can be total and with the self-giving comes the Delight long before the adversary is truly conquered and disappears.

       The adversary will disappear only when he is no longer necessary in the world. And we know very well that he is necessary as the touch-stone for gold—to know whether it is pure gold.

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      But if you become truly sincere—what Sri Aurobindo calls sincere, that is to say, when nothing in the being comes up to contradict the aspiration and the will to self-consecration, when nothing disguises itself in order to continue to live its own independent life (the disguises are innumerable, they are full of guile and malice, very deceiving, and unfortunately, the human being has a strong innate tendency to deceive himself and the more he deceives himself the less he recognises it), so then if you become truly sincere, the adversary will no longer be able even to approach you. And he does not try that, for that would mean heading to his destruction.

     Only there are people who have in them a sort of battling instinct and they are not satisfied with freeing themselves from the influence. They believe they have the strength to go and fight with him. So at times, unless they are wholly ready, they land themselves into an odd situation.

     Such cases are difficult.

     For such people, it is only trust in the Divine Grace that saves them. For even if they commit stupidities, there is always something which comes at the last moment and delivers them, somewhat like a mother cat that catches hold of her young one when it is about to get drowned as it believed it could walk on the water.

     But it has always been said that one must not tempt God. You must not do a thing with wilful daring thinking that the Divine will always pull you out of the trouble. This is not good. For instead of helping the work, it brings a complication.

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Collective Sadhana

III

"Accepting life, he has to bear not only his own burden, but a great part of the world's burden too along with it, as a continuation of his own sufficiently heavy load. Therefore his Yoga has much more of the nature of a battle than others'; but this is not only an individual battle, it is a collective war waged over a considerable country. He has not only to conquer in himself the forces of egoistic falsehood and disorder, but to conquer them as representatives of the same adverse and inexhaustible forces in the world. Their representative character gives them a much more obstinate capacity of resistance, an almost endless right to recurrence. Often he finds that even after he has won persistently his own personal battle, he has still to win it over and over again in a seemingly interminable war, because his inner existence has already been so much enlarged that not only it contains his own being with its well-defined needs and experiences, but is in solidarity with the being of others, because in himself he contains the universe".

(Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga)

How should one proceed, if the sadhana is not personal but collective ?

One must enlarge oneself.

          The work is more complicated, more complex, requiring a greater strength a greater width, a greater patience, a greater tolerance and a greater endurance.

          Yet if each one does perfecdy what he has to do, all together form but a single person doing the sadhana for everybody. If there are fifty doing the integral Yoga and only one does the work, then he does it for all. But if every one of the fifty does it for all, he does it in effect for one person, for everyone works for everyone. That should create among all a unity strong enough to make one indistinguishable from another. And that is the ideal way, that all together should form only one body, one personality working at once for one self and for others without distinction.

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      Truly speaking, this is the first question that arose when I met Sri Aurobindo. Should we do an intensive individual sadhana withdrawing from the world, that is to say, having no contact with others any more, and arrive at the goal; then, thereafter, deal with others. Or should one allow all those others to come who have the same aspiration, let the group form itself in a natural and spontaneous way and march all together towards the goal ? The two possibilities were there.

      The decision was not a mental choice, not at all. Quite naturally, spontaneously the group formed and asserted itself as an imperative necessity. There was no choice to be made.

      And once you start that way, it is done, you have to go right through to the end.

      If you want to do the work all alone, it is absolutely impossible to do it in a total way, for the entire physical being, however complete it may be, even if it is of an altogether higher quality, even if it has been created for a very special work, can never be but partial and limited. It represents only one truth, one law of the world; it may be a very complex law, but it is only one law— what is called Dharma in India—and the totality of the transformation cannot be done through that alone, through one single body.

     That is why spontaneously the multiplicity has been created.

     You can attain all alone your own perfection. You can become in your consciousness infinite and perfect. The inner realisation has no limits. But the external realisation, on the contrary, is necessarily limited and therefore if you want to have a general action a minimum

     A very old tradition gives the number as twelve. But in view of the complexity of modern life that does not seem sufficient. A representative group is needed.

     And that is why, although you knew nothing of it, each one of you represents one of the difficulties that have to be surmounted for the transformation. That creates very many difficulties. It is more than one difficulty. I believe I told you sometime ago that each one of you represents an impossibility that has to be

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resolved and it is only when all the impossibilities have been resolved that the Work will be accomplished.

      And now I am more kind, I do not say impossibility any more but difficulty; for perhaps they are no longer impossibilities.

      It is because of this collective character of the sadhana that from the beginning—and with greater reason now when our group has increased so considerably—whenever anyone comes and tells me, "I have a good many difficulties outside, I am not able to overcome them, I want to come here, for that will help me". I reply, "No, it will be still more difficult here, your difficulties will increase considerably, because it will no longer be isolated but collective difficulties added to your own. There will be all the frictions, contacts, reactions, all that comes from outside, as tests, exactly on your weak point, the most sensitive spot. Here you will hear just the word, the phrase, that you would not like to hear, and people will make just the gesture that would offend you. You will find yourself repeatedly in the presence of a circumstance, a fact, an object, it matters not what, just that thing among all that you would not like to happen. And it is precisely that which happens, and happens more and more, because you do not do your yoga for yourself alone, you do the yoga for everybody, without knowing it, automatically.

      So when people come and tell me, "I come here for peace, quiet, leisure to do my yoga", I tell them, "Not that surely ! Go at once elsewhere, you will be much more quiet anywhere else than here". But if one comes and tells me, "I feel that I must consecrate myself to the divine work. I come to work, to make myself useful and I am ready to do any kind of work", then I tell him, "It is all right, if you have the good will, endurance and a capacity. But if you seek solitude for your inner development, then it is better for you to go elsewhere. If you are not able to create peace and solitude within yourself, to isolate yourself sufficiently to go within yourself; if you are not able to do that in the conditions of ordinary life, then certainly it is not here that you will be able to do it; and your first difficulty will precisely be that you will feel invaded by everything and everybody

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and you will be incapable of isolating yourself."

       And it is the same for all. People who have a bad character, who get angry, for example, become worse here than in the ordinary world, because in the world they are checked by all the necessities of life—if they get angry against their employers, for example, they are driven out. Whereas here, they are not driven out, but are simply told, "Try to control yourself".

       There is another reason why your difficulties are multiplied here. For here, it is the place of realisation.

      In fife you are unconscious, you exist in a quite vague semiconsciousness. You know nothing of yourself, except an appearance, nothing more; you are and remain always incapable of fulfilling your mission, therefore you do not meet obstacles, you are not in the core of the difficulty; you are simply an appearance; you are wholly in the appearance. Your defects are small, your virtues are small, your capacities mediocre, and your difficulties mediocre. You are mediocre totally, constantly.

      It is only when you begin to walk on the path of realisation that your possibilities become real and at once your difficulties become much greater. Naturally 'things become intensified.

You say that each one represents an impossibility. In that case, should not each one concentrate on solving this impossibility ?

      Not necessarily by concentrating on it. But each one has to face it, whether he knows it or not. It is one aspect of the problem.

      I have already told you that. When you represent the possibility of a victory, you have always in you the thing opposed to this victory, which is your constant trouble.

     Everyone has his own difficulty. One, for example, who has to represent boldness, courage, a power to hold on without faltering before every danger and struggle, is generally, in some part of his being, a horrible coward. And he has to struggle against that almost

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incessantly, because that represents the victory that he has to win in the world.

      Similarly, one who has to be good, full of compassion and generosity is in some part of his being, sharp, acid and sometimes even wicked. And he has to struggle against that in order to be able to become the other thing. And so on. It is true even in all details.

     And when you see a dark shadow anywhere — very dark — something which is really painful, you may be sure that you have in you the possibility of the corresponding light.

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IV

Egoism and Ego

      Egoism is a thing relatively easy enough to correct, because everybody knows what it is. It is easy to detect and easy to correct, provided one truly wants to do it and is bent upon it.

      But the ego is much more difficult to seize, because, at bottom, to be aware of what the ego is, one needs already to have come out of it, otherwise one does not find it. Man is wholly made out of it; from the hair of the head down to the feet, from the outside deep into the inside, from the physical right up to the spiritual, ego is his stuff. It is mixed up in everything and one is never aware of what it is. One must have conquered it, come out of it, freed oneself from it, at least partially, even in a small part of the being somewhere, before one can be aware of what the ego is.

      Ego is that which helps us to individualise ourselves and that which prevents us from becoming divine. Combine the two together and you will know what the ego is. Without ego, as the world is organised now, there would be no individual, and with the ego the world cannot become divine.

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      The logical conclusion would be then, "Well, let us first become conscious individuals, then we will send away ego and become divine". Only, when we become conscious individuals we are so much accustomed to live with our ego that we are unable even to discover it, and we have to labour hard to become aware of its presence.

     Whereas everybody knows what egoism, that is to say, selfishness is: when you want to pull everything to yourself and when others do not interest you, that is called selfishness; when you establish yourself at the centre of the universe and nothing exists but in relation to you, that is selfishness. But it is very evident, one needs to be blind not to see that one is selfish. Everybody is a little selfish, more or less—there is indeed a proportion of selfishness that is normally admissible—but even in normal life, when you have a little too much of it, well, you receive a knock on your nose, because as everyone is an egoist he does not much like egoism in others.

    All that is understood. That forms part of the public morality. Yes, one has to be just a little egoistic, not too much, it must not be noticeable ! But the ego, of that nobody speaks, because nobody knows it. It is such an intimate companion that nobody is even aware of its existence; and yet so long as it is there you cannot have the divine consciousness.

     It is the ego that makes you conscious of being a person separate from others. Had there been no ego, you would not perceive that you are a person separate from others. You would have the impression of being a small part of a whole—quite a small part of a very great whole. But it is quite certain that everyone of you is conscious of being a separate person. Well, it is the ego that gives you this impression. So long as you are self-conscious in this way, it means that you have an ego.

     When you begin to be conscious that all is yourself, and that your ego is only a small point in the midst of thousands and thousands of others of the same person; that you are everywhere; when you feel that you yourself are in everything, that there is no separation, then you know that you are on the way to having no more ego.

     There even comes a moment when it is impossible to think

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and tell yourself "It is not I", for even to express yourself in this way, to say that the All is you or that you are All or you are the Divine or the Divine is you proves that there is still something left.

     There is a moment—it comes as a lightning flash and can hardly stay—when it is the All that thinks, it is the All that knows, it is the All that feels, it is the All that lives. There is not even the impression that you have arrived there.

    Then and there it is all right, but till then a little corner of the ego is still there somewhere : generally it is that which looks out, the witness that sees.

    So never assert that you have no ego any more. It is not correct. Say that you are on the way to having ego no more, that is the only correct thing.

    I do not think that the thing has happened to you, not yet ! And yet that is indispensable if you truly intend to know what the supramental is. If you are a candidate for superhumanity, you must be resolved to get rid of your ego, to transcend it, because so long as you keep it with you, the supramental will be for you something unknown and inaccessible.

    But if through effort, through self-discipline, a progressive self-mastery you have overcome your ego and transcended it, even though it may be in a tiny part of your being, that serves as a small window somewhere and through the window, if you look attentively, you can glimpse the supramental; and that is a promise given. And when you see it, you find it so beautiful that you have immediately the yearning to get rid of all the rest—of the ego.

    I do not say, mark well, that you have to be totally free from all ego before you can have a glimpse of the supramental, for in that case it would be an almost impossible thing. No, you are to be freed from the ego just a little in some part, in one corner of your being, even only a little corner in your mind; if it is mental and vital, it is good; but if by chance—oh, not by chance—if as a result of numerous efforts on your part you come into contact with your psychic being, there, the door is opened wide. Through the psychic you can have immediately a fine clear vision of what the supramental is, a vision only, not a realisation. That is the wide way

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out. But even if you do not come up to this fine realisation, the psychic realisation, if you succeed in liberating a part of your mind or a part of your vital, that makes a hole in the door, the hole that is a keyhole; through the keyhole you can have a little, just a little vision. And even that is very attractive, very interesting.

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V

The True Reason

      Those who want to follow the true path will naturally be exposed to the attacks of all the forces of ill-will which not only do not understand, but generally hate that which they do not understand.

     If you are troubled, vexed, even discouraged by all the spiteful stupidities that people may say about you, you will not be able to advance much on the way. And these things come to you not because you are unlucky or because your lot is not happy, but because, on the contrary, the divine Consciousness and Grace take your resolution seriously and allow the circumstances to become a touchstone on the way to see if your resolution is sincere and you are strong enough to face the difficulties.

    Therefore, if someone laughs at you, or says a thing which is not kind, the first thing to do is to look within yourself and see what that weakness or imperfection is which has allowed such a thing to happen, without being disconsolate or indignant or sad, because people do not appreciate you at your proper value or what you think it to be; on the contrary, you should thank the divine Grace for having pointed out to you the weakness or imperfection or deformation that you have to rectify.

   So, instead of being unhappy, you can be fully satisfied and

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take advantage, a great advantage, of the harm that someone wanted to do to you.

     Besides, if you wish truly to follow the path and to do the yoga, you must not do it in order that people may appreciate and honour you; you should do it because it is an imperative need of your being; because you cannot be happy except in that way. Whether people appreciate you or do not appreciate you has absolutely no importance whatever. You can tell yourself beforehand that the more you are away from the ordinary man, the more foreign to the way of the ordinary creature, the less you will be appreciated, quite naturally; for they will not understand you. And I repeat that has no importance whatsoever.

    True sincerity consists in following the way because you cannot do otherwise, in consecrating yourself to the divine life because you cannot do otherwise, in endeavouring to transform your being and emerge into the Light, because you cannot do otherwise, because it is the very reason for which your life exists.

    When it is like that, you can be sure that you are on the right path.

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VI

The Delight of Progress

      When you make an effort, you want to have an immediate reward. You are always in a hurry, you want it all to be done as quickly as possible.

      It is so because, at bottom, there is not this delight of progress. Because if the delight is there, even if one realises what one has set before oneself say, the supramental life on earth, one cannot but think, "It is only a stage in the eternity of time; after that another thing will come and again another and again and again—indefinitely, always forward"; and that is what fills you with delight.

     On the other hand, the idea that it is done, that one has realised what one wanted, and now one is to sit down and enjoy what one has done—oh ! how boring it is ! You become immediately old, stunted.

      Eternal youth, one can say, is to grow constantly, to progress without end. To grow in capacity, in possibility, in the field of action, in the extent of consciousness and to progress in the realisation of details.

      Human life progresses in successive stages. As you advance, certain things that are antiquated in one form change their form.

      Naturally, now, when one reaches the top of the ladder, one comes down again. But this is altogether unfortunate, it is not like that that things should be, it is a bad habit. When one has stopped growing, for example, you can transform this force that makes you grow into a force that will perfect your body, that will make it more and more strong, more and more firm, with a health that is more and more resistant. You will take to physical culture to become a model of physical beauty. At the same time you will cultivate the perfection of character, consciousness, knowledge, powers, and finally the divine Realisation in all that it has of the wonderfully good and true and in all its perfect love.

      And when you have come to the summit of what can be achieved in the present state of the world, you will bring down one

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more Power, and you will transform the world into the image of that new Power.

     But it is not a thing for idlers. It is for those who love progress. Not for those who come and tell me, "Oh, I have worked much in my life, now I want to take a rest. Will you give me a place in the Ashram ? My answer to them is, "Not here. This is not a place to rest in, because you have worked much; it is a place where one has to work much more than ever before."

So in other days I used to send them to Ramana Maharshi, saying, "Go there, you will get into meditation and you will find rest". Now that is no longer possible, so I send them to the Himalayas telling them, "Go and sit before the eternal snows ! That will do you good".

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Reprinted from The Bulletin of S. A. I. C. of Education

February, i960

Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry.

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