FAITH AND PROGRESS When one makes an effort, makes a little progress, one gets satisfied and is proud of it. That spoils everything. How to get rid of this fault ? It is because one looks at oneself while doing a thing. It is the habit of constantly observing oneself as one works or lives. Certainly you must observe yourself; but more than that you must be sincere and spontaneous —spontaneous in what you do and not turning towards yourself all the while, judging, criticising, sometimes even severely. That is often as bad as patting oneself with satisfaction. You must be sincere in your aspiration, you need not even know that you are aspiring: you should be

Human Birth Last week I spoke of birth and how a soul enters into a body. I told you that the body is formed in a very unsatisfactory manner almost in the case of every person, the exceptions are so rare that one need not mention them. I told you that because of this obscure birth man is made to carry with him quite a bundle of things which later on he has generally to get rid of, if he wishes to progress truly in life. I told you in effect that you are made to come by force, conditions are imposed upon you by force, and by force you obey the laws of heredity. Now, I am asked who or what is it that forces? I shall answer as clearly as possible. The b

PRAYER AND ASPIRATION (I) What you do has an inevitable and absolute consequence. This is a necessary concept at a given moment of the evolutionary process. It is meant to prevent men from becoming completely egoistic or doing what they do in a totally unconscious manner. There are many who are like that, the majority, I suppose; they follow their impulses and do not ask what consequences their actions will have for themselves and for others. It is good then if someone told them with a severe air: "Take care, that has consequences which last long, very long". There are religions that rose to warn you: "You will pay for that in another life", "If you commit th

THE VALUE OF MONEY The more one has money, the more one falls into a calamity. It is indeed a calamity, my children. It is a catastrophe to have money. It makes you stupid, it makes you avaricious, it makes you wicked. It is one of the biggest calamities in the world. Money is a thing which one should not possess unless and until he is without desire, without attachment. When one has a consciousness as wide as the earth, then only one can have all the money there is upon earth and that would be good for everybody. But until then as much money you have, so much the curse there is upon you. I will tell this to the face of everybody, even to the face of the man who

ARE NOT THE ASCETIC MEANS HELPFUL AT TIMES? I do not think. You cure nothing in that way. You give yourself the illusion that you are progressing, but you are really freed of nothing. The proof is that as soon as you stop the practices, the old things come back violently with a vengeance. But naturally all depends upon the meaning you attach to the word. If it means not yielding to your desires, then it is not asceticism, it is common sense, it is good sense. By asceticism people usually understand fasting, bearing biting cold or burning heat, lying on a bed of sharp nails, that is to say, torturing the body in some way or other. That giv

Will and Desire What is the difference between Desire or Wish and Will? They are not the same thing. When, for example, you see that a thing is to be done and that it is good to do it, then normally your reason decides and judges; then it is your will that sets to work and makes you do what is necessary for the work to be done. Thus will is the power of execution which should be at the disposal of what has been decided by you or a higher force. It is a thing coordinated and organised: it acts according to plan and is in full self-control. Wish or desire, on the other hand, is an impulse. There are people who are full of desires, but have no will; they are eaten up

MEDITATION AND WAKEFULNESS To have good meditation or contact with the inner world, if you are obliged to go into Samadhi, then your normal consciousness will remain always the same without changing. In other words, people who have a higher consciousness only in deep meditation, once they come out of it, are not worth more than what they were before. All their defects are there which they get back as soon as they get back their previous consciousness.1 Such people never progress; for they never establish a connection between their deeper consciousness, the truth of their being, and their external being. They take off their external being like a robe and put it a

THE SURRENDER OF AN INNER WARRIOR It means the the vital when it is converted. The converted vital is for the Divine like a warrior. The vital in man is the region of power and it is that which drives him to fight, to fight and conquer. It is the most difficult element to deal with: for it is this capacity to fight that also produces in the vital the spirit of revolt and independence, the will to follow its own will. But when the vital understands and is converted, if it is truly surrendered to the Divine Will, then its fighting capacity turns against anti-divine forces, the forces of obscurity that prevent the transformation: the powers of the v

VALUE OF RELIGIOUS EXERCISES What is the value of religious exercises (such as fapa etc.)? These things, if they help you, are all right; if they do not, naturally they are of no use. The value is quite relative. It is worth only the effect it has on you or the measure of your belief in it. If it is an aid to your concentration, then, as I say, it is welcome. The ordinary consciousness takes to the thing through a kind of superstition; one thinks, "if I go to the temple or to the church once a week, for example, if I say my prayers regularly, something good will happen to me". It is a superstition spread all over the world, but it has no spiritual value

PERSONAL EFFORT AND SURRENDER There is no difference in the end between the two if the goal to attain is the Impersonal Divine, that is to say, if you want to unite and identify yourself with the Impersonal Divine, merge into it. But if your aspiration is to reach what is beyond, what Sri Aurobindo calls the supramental Reality, then there comes in a difference, a difference in the goal as well as in the way. For the way to the supramental realisation is essentially the way of surrender. It is a question of temperament perhaps. And if one has the temperament, the disposition, the path of surrender is infinitely more easy: three-fourths of your trouble and dif