THE MOTHER

   Questions and Answers

Sri Aurobindo Ashram

Pondicherry

APRIL, 1960

      To be plastic to the Divine means not to set against Him the rigidity of preconceived ideas and fixed principles. And this requires a great strength, for the more you are plastic to the divine will, the more you come in conflict with the human wills that are not in contact with the divine will.

    No two combinations, no two movements in the universe are similar; nothing is reproduced exactly. There are analogies, there are similarities, there are families—families of movements that can be called families of vibrations, but there are no two things that are identical, neither in time, nor in space. Nothing is repeated, otherwise there would be no manifestation, no becoming, there would be only one creation, one single thing.

   Manifestation is just this diversity. It is the One that spreads itself out in the Many—endlessly.

Questions and Answers

I

The five psychological perfections

SOMEONE asked me what was this "psychological perfection" that the Champa flower symbolises. There is not one psychological perfection, but five, like the five petals of this flower. We have said, they are : sincerity, faith, devotion, aspiration and surrender. But as a matter of fact, every time I give this flower, it is not always the same psychological perfections. It is something very fluid, depending on the circumstances and the need of people.

     In any case, the first among the five, that which is always there in all the combinations is sincerity. For, if sincerity is, not there, one cannot advance, not even by half a step....

     But it can be translated by another word : transparence. Let me explain. When I am in the presence of a person, I look into his eyes. And if the person is sincere or transparent, I go down into him through his eyes, I see his soul clearly. But, and that is precisely the experience; it happens at times that I see a little cloud. I continue, I see a screen. I still continue and sometimes it is a wall; then it is something absolutely black. And you must pass through all that, have to bore holes in order to enter, even then you are not sure if at the last minute you will not find yourself before a bronze door, so thick that you may never pass through and it may be impossible to see his soul. In that case, I can say immediately that the person is not sincere. I can say also, in a more literary way, that he is not transparent. This then is the first thing.

     There is another which is evidently quite indispensable if one wants to advance, it is faith. You can use another word, which

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looks more limited, but for me is more important: that is to say, trust. Because—it is a question of experience—if your faith is not made of a complete trust in the Divine, you may easily keep the impression that you have faith and gradually lose all trust in the Divine Power or Divine Goodness, all trust in the Trust that the Divine has in you—these are the three stumbling blocks.

      First of all, there are people who assert that they have an unshakable faith in the Divine; they say, "It is the Divine that is doing everything, can do everything. All that happens in me or in others, everywhere, is the work of the Divine and His only." But if they follow their thought with some logic, they will begin after a time to accuse the Divine of the most frightful misdeeds, of all the evils happening in the world. They will make of Him truly a Demon, cruel and frightening—if they do not have trust.

     Or otherwise, they do have faith, but they say : "Yes, I have faith in the Divine, but this world, I know well what it is. First of all, I suffer so much, I am very unhappy, much more unhappy than all my neighbours (for you are always much more unhappy than your neighbour). Indeed Life is wicked with me. But then, the Divine being divine, being all goodness and generosity and harmony, how is it that I am so unhappy ? He must be powerless, otherwise being so good, how can He let me suffer so much !" This then is the second stumbling block.

     There is a third one. I speak of people who have what might be called a wrong or excessive modesty or humility; they say, "Surely the Divine has rejected me, I am good for nothing, He can do nothing with me, I have only to give up the game, for He finds me unworthy of Him". Then unless you add to your faith a total and complete trust in the Divine Grace, you shall have difficulties.

     Now, Devotion. It is the third among the psychological perfections. Yes, Devotion is very good, but unless it is accompanied by many other things, that too may go very wrong and meet with much difficulty.

     You have devotion and you keep your ego. And your ego

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makes you do all kinds of things out of devotion, and things that are terribly egoistic. That is to say, you think of yourself only and not of others, nor of the world nor of the work nor of what has to be done—you think only of your own devotion. And you become formidably egoistic. And then, when you find that the Divine, for some reason or other, does not respond to your devotion with the enthusiasm that you expect of him, you despair and fall into the three difficulties of which I spoke just now : either the Divine is cruel—we have read a good many stories of the sort about devotees who abuse the Divine because he is not as kind and as near to them as before. He has withdrawn himself: "Why have you abandoned me ? You let me fall, O monster !" Perhaps they do not dare to say that but they think like that; or otherwise they say, "Oh, I must have committed such a serious blunder that I have been rejected", and they fall into despair.

      So the devotion must be accompanied by another movement, that is, gratitude. This feeling of gratitude that the Divine exists, this gratefulness, full of wonder, that truly fills your heart with a sublime delight, because the Divine exists, because there is something in the universe that is the Divine, and there is not merely the monstrosity that we see—because there is the Divine, because the Divine is there. And each time any least thing puts you in contact with this sublime reality of the Divine existence, your heart is filled with so intense and wonderful a delight, such gratefulness as is of all things the most delectable in taste. Nothing can give you a delight equal to that of gratitude. You hear a bird singing, you see a flower, you look at a child, you witness an act of generosity, you read a beautiful sentence, you stand before a sunset, it does not matter what the thing is—all on a sudden it comes upon you, a kind of emotion, but so deep, so intense, because the world manifests the Divine, because there is something behind the world which is the Divine.

     So I consider that devotion without gratitude is wholly incomplete. Gratitude must also be there with it.

     Next comes the fourth perfection : aspiration, which can be translated also as courage. It is a courage that has the taste of a

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supreme adventure. This taste of supreme adventure, that is aspiration—the aspiration which seizes you entirely and throws you without calculation, without reserve, without the possibility of a withdrawal, toward the great adventure of the discovery of the Divine, the great adventure of meeting with the Divine, the still greater adventure of realising the Divine; and you throw yourself into the adventure without looking behind, without asking even for a minute, "what is going to happen ?" because, if you ask what is going to happen you never start, you remain with both the feet planted on the ground there fixed, in fear of losing something, losing your balance.

      That is why I speak of courage. But in truth it is aspiration. It is the two together. A true aspiration is a thing full of courage.

     Now the fifth perfection, surrender. Sri Aurobindo tells us that surrender is the first and absolute condition for doing the yoga. Therefore it is not merely one of the required qualities, it is the very first indispensable attitude for commencing the yoga. If you are not decided to make a total surrender, you cannot begin. But to make your surrender total, all the other qualities are necessary: sincerity, faith, devotion and aspiration.

    And I add another one : endurance. Because if you are not able to face difficulties without getting discouraged, without giving up under the pretext that it is too difficult, if you are not able to receive blows and continue all the same, to "pocket" them, as it is said,—you receive blows because of your defects : you put them into your pocket and continue to march on without faltering; if you cannot do that with endurance, you will not go very far; at the first turning, when you lose sight of the little habitual life, you despair and give up the game.

    The most material form of endurance is perseverance. Unless you are resolved to begin the same thing over again a thousand times if needed, you will arrive nowhere. People come to me in despair : "But I thought it had been done, and I have to begin again !" And if they are told, "But it is nothing, you have to begin probably a hundred times, two hundred times, a thousand times", they lose all courage. You take one step forward and you

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believe you are solid, but there will be always something that will bring about the same difficulty a little farther ahead. You believe you have solved the problem, but will have to solve it again; it will present itself with just a little difference in its appearance, but it will be the same problem.

     Thus there are people who have a fine experience and they exclaim, "Now, it is done !" Then things settle down, begin to fade, go behind a veil; and all on a sudden, something quite unexpected, a thing absolutely commonplace, that appears to be of no interest at all, comes before them and closes up the road. Then you lament: "Of what use is ihis progress that I have made, if I am to begin again ! Why is it so ? I made an effort, I succeeded, I arrived at something and now it is as if I had done nothing. It is hopeless". This is because there is still the "I" and this "I" has no endurance.

     If you have endurance, you say : "All right, I will begin again and again as long as necessary, a thousand times, ten thousand times, a million times, if necessary, but I will go to the end and nothing can stop me on the way".

     That is very necessary.

     Now, to sum up, we will put at the head of our list surrender. That is to say, we accept the fact that one must, in order to do the integral yoga, take the resolution of surrendering oneself wholly to the Divine. There is no other way, it is the way. Next come the five virtues or psychological perfection :

     Sincerity or Transparence Faith or Trust Devotion or Gratitude Aspiration or Courage Endurance or Perseverance

     There is another form of endurance, it is faithfulness. To be faithful. You have taken a resolution and you are faithful to the resolution; this is endurance. If you persist, a moment will come when you have the victory.

      Victory is for the most persistent.

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II

"Not the mind's control of vital impulse is its rule, but the strong immobility of an immortal spirit."

(Sri Aurobindo. The Synthesis of Yoga. Chap. III.)

What is the meaning of this sentence ?

      It is clear as daylight. What is needed is the strong immobility of an immortal spirit. All the rest is secondary. That is to say, the spirit must be conscious of its immortality and so have a strong immobility.

     Because it is a fact. When the spirit is conscious of immortality, it attains an immobility full of power. It is not the immobility of inertia or weakness, it is a strong immobility which is a basis for action. All that one does rests upon this all powerful immobility of the spirit that is immortal.

     But no explanation can give you that: you must have the experience.

    And it is always the same thing. This head, the little brain cannot understand. But as soon as you have the experience, you understand, not before. You may have a kind of imagination, but that is not understanding. To understand you must live. When you will be conscious of your immortal spirit, you will know what is its strong immobility. Otherwise it is mere words.

     Perhaps you do not understand how one can be immobile and strong at the same time. Is it that which troubles you ? Well, I tell you that the greatest strength lies in immobility. That is the sovereign power.

   Take just a little superficial application of the thing which will make you understand. If, for example, someone comes and insults you or tells you unpleasant things, and if you begin to vibrate in tune with this anger or bad will, you feel yourself quite weak and stripped, and generally you do foolish things. But if you succeed in keeping within yourself, especially within your head, a complete immobility that refuses to receive these vibrations, at once you

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feel a great strength and the man cannot trouble you. And if you are able to remain very quiet, even physically, very silent, un-moving, within yourself and everywhere, if you do not have all these vibrations of inner response to the violence that comes upon you, then that has a power not only over you but over the other person also.

      This may give you an idea of the power of immobility. And that is not a great thing in the spiritual life, but it is a thing of the external, material life, a current fact that you can observe every day.

      There is a tremendous power in immobility : mental immobility, sensorial immobility, physical immobility. If you can remain like a wall, absolutely motionless, all that the other person casts at you will fall back upon him. And the action is immediate — it can stop the arm of the assassin. Only it will not do to appear immobile and to be in a turmoil within. I do not mean that, I mean an integral immobility.

Is it the same thing as the equality of the soul of which Sri Aurobindo speaks ?

      The equality of the soul is a way. It is a means. It can be an end also. But it is not the crowning.

     There are people, as I have already said, who profess that whatever happens is the expression of the Divine Will. All that is, the world as it is, is the expression of the Divine Will. Therefore, they say, wisdom requires that you accept without winking and without the least emotion or the least reaction everything that happens, for it is the expression of the Divine Will and it is understood we bend before it.

     This conception tends just to help people to get the equality of the soul. But if you adopt this conception without admitting its contrary and making a synthesis, you have naturally nothing more in life than to sit down and do nothing. Or in any case you

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never try to make the world progress.

      I remember to have read formerly, some years ago, a book of Anatole France—he was a consummate wit. I believe it must be his book of Jerome Coignard. And he said something like this, that men would be happy if they were not anxious about improving life. All misfortune begins with this will that people have to improve men and things. That is what I was telling you just now, although in another form; if you want to be in peace, happy, always satisfied, in a perfect equality of the soul, you must be convinced that things are as they should be, and if you are religious, you must persuade yourself and say, "they are as they should be, because they are the expression of the Divine Will". And we have only one thing to do, to remain perfectly quiet, because it is better to be quiet than to be restless. Anatole France tells you the same thing, only he turns it round: life is very comfortable, very bearable and very acceptable, if men did not put into their head that it should be otherwise. From the very moment they are not satisfied, naturally there is not one who is satisfied.

     If everybody had the good sense to say that things are as they should be : you die because you have to die, you are ill because you have to be ill, you are separated from those whom you love because you have to be separated etc., etc. and you are in poverty because you have to be poor—there is no limit to this—and there is no sense either in suffering or in revolting, it is a stupidity ! And misery begins by your will to make things better : why don't you like to be ill, when you are ill ? You are much more ill when you do not want to be ill than when you say : "All right, it is God's Will, I accept my illness !" At least, you are quiet and perhaps that helps you to be cured. And why do the poor want to be rich, and why do those who lose their children or their relatives want it not to be so ? If every body wanted that things be as they are then everybody would be happy.

     That is a point of view. Only perhaps it may be that the Divine Will is not quite like that. Perhaps it is like the story of the elephant, the driver and the Brahmin that you know well: The Brahmin on the way would not move aside saying, "No, God in

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me wants to be there" and the driver replying, "But God in me tells you to go away !"

      The answer to Anatole France is precisely perhaps this that there is a will higher than man's and it wants things to move, to change. So one has to obey and to change them.

it is written here :

           "In the path of works action is the knot we have first to loosen."

                       (Sri Aurobindo. The Synthesis of Yoga. Chap. III)

Why is action a knot ?

          Because you are attached to action.

         The knot is the egoistic knot. You do an action because of a desire, a desire that you call a need or a necessity or anything whatever—that is the knot. You must therefore do away with desire.

         But if people are told, "Do the action without being attached to the result, have the consciousness that it is not you who act, it is the Divine that acts", they answer, ninetynine times and a half out of hundred, "But if I feel like that, I don't budge, I do nothing". Because it is always a need, a desire, a personal impulse that makes them act.

        Therefore Sri Aurobindo tells us that the first thing to do, in order to realise the teaching of the Gita, is to undo the knot that ties action to desire. And it is a fact, and it is that that should be done, a little inner operation. When the operation is done, you find that you can act without having the least personal motive, you are moved by a force higher than the egoistic force and also more powerful. Then when you act the consequences of your action do not come back upon you.

      This is a wonderful phenomenon of consciousness and altogether concrete. In life, when you do a thing—whatever it is, good, bad or indifferent—you immediately draw a series of consequences that come upon you. Besides you act in order to obtain certain consequences. If I put my hand .upon the mike, for ex-

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ample, and look for the consequence, it is to make a noise in the mike. There is always a consequence.

     But if you loosen the knot and let the Force that comes from above or elsewhere to act through you and make you do things, your acts have indeed their consequences, but they no longer come to you, for it is not you who have initiated the action, it is the Force from above that acts. And the consequences go up above or otherwise they are guided, willed, directed, controlled by the Force that has moved you. And you feel ab-so-lu-te-ly free.

    This experience comes at first like a flash, for a moment, then it withdraws. Only when you are quite ready for the transformation that it comes to stay. But it happens at times that some people have this experience for a few seconds in their life and then the movement withdraws, the state of consciousness withdraws, but the memory remains. They imitate that. And if by chance they are people who know how to talk, they say to their disciples, "When you have unloosened the knot of desire and when it is the Divine who acts through you, the actions have no consequence moral or otherwise. And you can do all kinds of things, you can kill your neighbour, you can outrage a woman, you can do whatever the Divine wants from you and you never undergo any consequence".

    So, that is what they do. They take the experience as a robe to cover their excesses. This is said by the way so that you may beware of people who pretend to be what they are not.

    But as a matter of fact the result is very simple, for they undergo immediately the consequences of their pretence.

    I have had a striking example of a Sannyasi who was furious against someone because this person did not want to be his disciple—which was already a proof that he was far from having reached the condition to which he laid claim, and as he possessed some powers, he made a very powerful formation to do away with the person. It happened that the person in question was in contact with Sri Aurobindo. And the result was that the formation of the Sannyasin, who was acting with the so-called divine will fell back upon him, so much so that he was killed by it.

    It is sufficient simply

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There was no need to do anything else.

      The moral of the story is that one must not pretend, one must be. One must be wholly sincere and not cover his desires with fine theories.

      I have many people who claim to have a perfect equality of soul and a perfect freedom and who hide themselves behind the formula "everything is the Divine Will", but who in fact substitute in thought their own will for the divine will and are very far from having realised what they lay claim to. They were idlers who did not want to make any effort and preferred to keep their nature as it is, rather than work and transform it.

Have such people powers ?

     Yes, some have great powers. But these are powers that come from the vital and from association with vital entities.

     Powers are of all kinds. Only these powers cannot stand in the presence of the true Divine Power. Nothing can resist that. But confronting ordinary human individualities they have much power.

     Then they can do harm ?

     Much harm. Not only they can, they do. They do much harm. The number of people pursued, tormented, because they had the misfortune of meeting a so-called Sannyasi¹ is considerable, considerable.

     In receiving the initiation they received also the imposition of a force from the vital world and that is most dangerous of all things. It is not always the case but that is what happens most often.

     ¹ It is of course understood that this points to those alone who put on the orange robe for the only purpose of hiding their egoistic passions behind the veil of a dress that is generally respected. There is no question here of those who have a pure heart, whose costume is simply the external sign of their integral consecration to the spiritual life.

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Since sincerity is such a rare virtue in the world that one should bow down before it with respect when one meets it. Sincerity—what we call sincerity, that is to say, a perfect honesty and transparence; let there be nowhere anything that pretends, that hides, that wishes to pass for what it is not.

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III

" These (inner enemies) have to be sacrificed in the harsher sense of the word, whatever pain in going they may throw by reflection on the consciousness of the seeker". (Sri Aurobindo. The Synthesis of Yoga. Chap. IV)

Of what pain is it spoken ?

      How is it, it has never happened to you ? When you have a movement in you which you do not like, a movement of anger, for example, or of spite or an insincerity and when you reject it from you, when you make an effort not to have the movement any more, that gives you pain, is it not ? It does pain you. It is like uprooting something. Well, it is of this pain that Sri Aurobindo speaks. The bad thing that you throw out of you gives you a little kick in going away like a parting gift.

      Because one has always the illusion that pain belongs to oneself.

      This is not true ? Pain is a thing put upon you. The same thing may happen exactly alike in every detail without giving you the shadow of a pain. On the contrary, the very same thing can fill you with ecstatic delight. And it is exactly the same thing, the same event. But in one- case you are open to the adverse forces that you want to throw Out of yourself, and in the other you are

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not, you are far enough so that they can have no effect upon you. Then instead of feeling the negative side represented by the Adversary, you feel only the positive side of the Divine : it is the Divine Grace which makes you progress and with the Divine Grace you feel the Divine Delight. But generally, instead of identifying yourself with the Grace that makes you progress, you identify yourself with the wrong thing that you want to get rid of —then naturally you feel like it and suffer.

     It is an experience easy to have, if you are just a little conscious. Pull out of you a little wrong movement and you will see. If you identify yourself however little with the thing, you feel the pain of the pull; if on the contrary you are identified with the divine force which comes to liberate you, you feel the joy of the Divine Grace and you have the ecstasy of the progress you have made.

    If you identify yourself with the forces from below, you suffer; if you identify yourself with the forces from above you are happy. I do not speak of enjoying a pleasure. Do not believe that when you jump or dance or cry or play you are necessarily identified with divine forces. You cannot be, also you can be. I do not speak of that, I speak of the Divine Delight, the unmixed inner delight.

    Each time that a shadow passes, you may tell yourself, "There, the enemy".

    And this is true all along the scale, from the smallest to the biggest thing, from a simple discomfort to the unbearable suffering and pain : the enemy is there.

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"If a division of works has to be made, it is between those that are nearest to the heart of the sacred flame and those that are least touched or illumined by it because they are more at a distance, or between the fuel that burns strongly or brightly and the logs that if too thickly heaped on the altar may impede the ardour of the fire by their damp, heavy and diffused abundance".

(Sri Aurobindo. The Synthesis of Yoga. Chap. V)

      To what does that correspond psychologically in our life ?

      I suppose for everyone it is different. Everyone must find the activities that increase his aspiration, his consciousness, his deep knowledge of things and those which, on the contrary, mechanise it and bring it down to a purely material relation with things. It is difficult to make a general rule.

      To say the truth, it is not the thing itself which is important, but the manner in which it is done.

     A quite material work, as for example, cleaning the floor, may lead to a very deep consciousness if it is done with a certain sense of perfection and progress, whereas, works reputed to be of a higher order, like works of study or literary and artistic works, if they are done for the sake of fame or for the satisfaction of self-love, with a view to some material gain, do not help you to progress. The classification therefore depends more upon the inner attitude than on the external fact and this is applicable to everything.

    As for the work done purely for lucrative and personal reasons, as for earning one's livelihood, it can precisely be compared to the damp logs of which Sri Aurobindo speaks which are too thickly heaped to let the flame leap up. It has in it something humid and deadening.

    This brings me to tell you something, which I have already told you several times. From the very beginning of my present earthly existence, I happened to meet many people who said that they had a great inner aspiration, an urge towards something deeper

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and more true, but could not advance, because, they said, they were bound, subjected, slaves of this brutal necessity of earning their livelihood and that put such a burden upon them, took so much of their time and energy that nothing remained to enable them to devote to any other kind of activity inner or outer. I have heard this very often, I have seen many poor people like that—I do not say poor from the monetary point of view, but poor, because they felt themselves imprisoned in a narrow and deadening material necessity.

      I was very young at that time and I always told myself that one day, if I could, I would try to create a small world—oh, quite small—a small world where people could live without having to busy themselves with food and lodging and clothes and all the imperious necessities of life, so that I might see whether all these energies freed by the certainty of an assured material existence would turn spontaneously towards the divine life and the inner realisation.

    Well, towards the middle of my life—that is, what is generally called the middle of a human existence—this means was given to me and I could realise that, that is to say, create conditions of life as those I told you of. And I have come to this conclusion that it is not the so-called material necessities that prevent people from devoting themselves to an inner realisation, but it is a sloppiness, a tamas, a lack of aspiration, it is a miserable spirit of let-alone, of I don't care and it is those persons who are placed in the most difficult conditions of life that sometimes react the most and have the most intense aspiration.

     I wait till the contrary is proved.

     I would like very much to see the contrary, but till now I have not seen. And as there is a mass of energy that is not utilised, as there is no more the terrible pressure to have to fight in order to eat, in order to possess a roof, to put clothes on one's back, as one is sure of all that, well, this mass of energy without employment, is used for doing stupid things. And one of the most disastrous stupidities consists in moving one's tongue : chat and chat and chat, to be busy with things that are none of one's concern. And I know

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that it is simply the overflowing unutilised energy.

     So then the division in the works is not perhaps quite what one believes..,..

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V

What is the difference between yoga and religion ?

     Well, my child, it is as if you asked me what is the difference between a Hon and a dog !

    Imagine a person who has in some way heard of something that is called the Divine or who has a personal feeling that something of that kind exists. And this person begins to make all sorts of effort—effort of will, effort of discipline, effort of concentration —to find this Divine, to discover what it is, to know of it and to be united with it. Then it can be said that this person is doing a yoga.

    Now, if that person noted down all the processes that he had used and made of them a fixed system, erected into absolute laws all that he had discovered : the Divine is like this, to find the Divine you must do like that, this gesture, that ceremony and you must admit that that is the truth : "I recognise that that is the truth and I fully adhere to it and your method is the only good one, the only one that exists", and if all this is written, organised, arranged into fixed laws and ceremonies, that becomes religion.

Can one realise the Divine by this method, that is, religion ?

      People who carry in them a spiritual destiny and who are born to realise the Divine, to become conscious of Him and live

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Him will reach there necessarily, whatever the way followed. That is to say, even in religion there are people who have the spiritual experience and who find the Divine—not because of religion, generally, in spite of it,—because they have the inner urge and this urge leads them to the goal in spite of the obstacles and through them. Everything was good for them.

     But when these people want to express their experience, they use quite naturally the terms of the religion in which they were brought up and they restrict their experience, are compelled to limit it a great deal and make it in some way sectarian. But for themselves it is possible they may have gone beyond all forms, all limits and conventions and have had the true experience in its very simplicity.

In the present-day world do not most people follow some kind of religion ? Are they not helped ?

     Perhaps they have just begun again to follow a religion, but for a long time, quite at the beginning of this century, people had repudiated religion, at least the entire intellectual humanity, because they found it contrary to knowledge. It is only now that there has begun a return to something other than unmixed positivism.

     People have a religion by social habit, in order not to be seen in a bad fight. In many villages, for example, it is difficult not to attend religious ceremonies, because all your neighbours will point their finger at you. But that has nothing to do with spiritual life, nothing at all.

     I will tell you a story. The first time I came to India, I was travelling in a Japanese boat. And on this Japanese boat there were two clergymen of different sects. I do not remember exactly what sects, but both were English; I think one was an anglican, the other a presbyterian.

     Then Sunday came. A religious ceremony had to be done on the boat, otherwise one would look like a pagan, as the Japanese

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are. So there must be a ceremony, but who would do it ? Should it be the anglican or the presbyterian ? There was almost a quarrel. Finally one withdrew with dignity; I do not remember which one, I believe it was the anglican. And the presbyterian did the ceremony.

      That happened in the salon of the ship. One had to come down a few steps to get into the salon. All the men had put on their coats —the weather was hot, I believe we were in the Red Sea—all had put on waist-coats, collars, leather shoes, neckties well tied, hats on the heads and they went a book in hand, almost in a procession from the deck down to the salon. The ladies had also their hats on, even some with umbrellas, they too had their books in hand, a book of prayers.

     They all entered and were engulfed in that hole. The presbyterian made a speech, that is to say, he did his sermon which everyone heard very religiously. When everything ended, they all mounted up with the satisfied air of one who has done his duty; and naturally, after five minutes they were at the bar drinking and playing at cards, and their religious ceremony was forgotten. They did their duty, it ended there.

     Then the clergyman came and asked me, more or less politely, why I had not attended the service.

— I regret, sir, But I do not believe in religion.

— Oh, oh ! You are a materialist !

— I, not at all.

— Then why ?

— If I told you you would be quite displeased. It would be perhaps better for me not to tell you.

     He insisted so much that I told him in the end : "May I tell you that I do not find you sincere, neither you nor your flock. You all went there to fulfil a social duty, a social custom, not because you had truly a desire to come in relation with God".

— Come in relation with God ! But we cannot do that. All that we can is to say some good words.

    I answered then : "It is exactly for that reason that I did not go, because that does not interest me."

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      Afterwards, the clergyman put to me many questions and disclosed to me that he was going to China to convert the "pagans". Then I became grave and told him :

     "Just listen please, even before your religion was born—not yet two thousand years ago—the Chinese possessed a very high philosophy and knew the way to the Divine. When they think of Occidentals, they think them as barbarians. Then why do you go to convert these people who know more than you do? What are you going to teach them ? To be insincere ? To do hollow ceremonies instead of following a profound philosophy and a detachment that leads them to a higher consciousness ?" The poor man felt suffocated and told me : "Oh, I fear I can't be convinced by your words", to which I replied, "I am not trying to convince you, I tell you only the situation and I do not see very well why barbarians should go to teach civilised people what they knew before you did."

     There it ended.

VI

Why did the mental being put on a material body ?

    Man, that is to say the mental being, took a body in order to find in himself the divine Being, the divine Presence.

    Why ? One might think that it was a queer procedure. But one fact is certain that this wonderful thing, the divine Presence in matter, which is the origin of the formation of the psychic being belongs to terrestrial life alone.

    This terrestrial world, I have told you many times, that appears nothing more than a little planet without importance from the astronomical point of view, in the midst of all the stars and all the worlds, was formed to become the symbol of the universe and to be a point of concentration for the work of transformation, of divine transmutation.

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     It is for this reason that in this matter, which was in the midst of all universal matter perhaps the most obscure and the most inconscient, the Divine Consciousness cast itself and became embodied directly from the Supreme Origin without passing through anything intermediary. Thus the two extremes touch each other : the Supreme and the most inconscient and the circle of the universe closes itself. That is why terrestrial life is the most convenient, so to say, or' the quickest way to become conscious of the Divine.

    It is so true that even the great cosmic individua Uties, when they wish to get converted or united with the Supreme, take a physical body, for that is more convenient and it is in this way that they can all the better and more quickly rejoin the Origin than if they had to advance through all the states of the being, from any one of the states of being in the universe up to the supreme Origin.

   It is easier to come down into a human body and find the divine Presence there. It is like the serpent biting its tail : if you want to unite with the Divine, it is easier to get into the tail rather than go all the way round, since the head is biting the tail.

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

April, 1960

Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry.

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