VII      LOVE       Q: Can psychic love reach the Highest Truth by its own power?       A: Yes, certainly.         Q: How can one know that he has full psychic love for the Divine?       A: By the absence of ego, by pure devotion, by submission and surrender to the Divine.         Q: Is psychic love always turned towards the Divine?       A: It is sometimes turned to the human person, but it never gets its true satisfaction till it turns to the Divine.         Q: Is not psychic love the same as divine Love?       A: No. There is a human psychic love also marked by selflessness, fidelity and self-giving to a h

      VIII         THE PSYCHIC OPENING       Q: In "Conversations", the Mother speaks of a fire burning in the deep quietude of the heart. Is this fire the psychic being?       A: A fire is not a being—it is the psychic fire, an intense condition of aspiration.         Q: Where is the psychic being located?       A: It is behind the heart centre, deep in.         Q: The Mother sometimes says that the psychic being of this or that person is good. But is it not a fact that the psychic being in all is a portion of the Divine and therefore always good? Why then does Mother make a distinction in particular cases?       A: The psychic being

  XII         DIFFICULTIES AND PROGRESS       Q: How long the difficulties and obstacles remain in sadhana?       A: It depends on the sadhaks.         Q: In what sense does it depend on them? Does it mean that the difficulty remains so long as they wish to keep it?       A: Yes, or so long as something in them gives cause for the difficulties.         Q: How is it that the more sincerely we try to face and overcome the difficulties of our nature- the more they tend to increase?       A: It is the opposing or adverse forces that attack because they are afraid of their control over men being taken from them by the success of the sadhana

 III    ASPIRATION       Q: What is meant by spiritual aspiration?       A: It means the aspiration towards spiritual things, spiritual experience, spiritual realisation, the Divine.         Q: Are will and aspiration the same?       A: No, certainly not. Aspiration is a call to the Divine,—will is the pressure of a conscious force on Nature.         Q: Is prayer the same as aspiration?      A: It is an expression of aspiration or can be. For there are prayers which only express a desire —e.g., prayers for wealth, wordly success, etc.         Q: What is the difference between aspiration and opening ?       A: They h

    XI         TRANSFORMATION         Q: What are the chief obstacles that stand in the way of transformation?       A: There are only three fundamental obstacles that can stand in the way:       (1) Absence of faith or insufficient faith.       (2) Egoism—the mind clinging to its own ideas, the vital preferring its own desires to a true surrender, the physical adhering to its own habits.       (3) Some inertia or fundamental resistance in the consciousness, not willing to change because it is too much of an effort or because it does not want to believe in its capacity or the power of the Divine—or for some other more subconscient reason. You have

      XIV         SOME EXPLANATIONS         Q: Are not religious practices like doing japa, reading holy scriptures, doing puja, etc. signs of aspiration for the Divine life? Are they not a help for reaching the highest Truth?       A: It depends on the spirit in which they are done. A man can do all these things and yet remain an unspiritual man or even an Asura.         Q: Is there any spiritual value in going for pilgrimage to holy places and worshipping many gods and goddesses? Does it help in realising the Divine Truth?       A: It has nothing to do with the Truth; it is a religious exercise for the ordinary consciousness.         Q: What is the sp

  SRI AUROBINDO     ELEMENTS OF YOGA         SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM PONDICHERRY      PUBLISHERS :   SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM PONDICHERRY     All Rights Reserved       First Impression .. Jan. 1953 Second Impression .. July 1956         SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM PRESS, PONDICHERRY   PRINTED IN INDIA      

     V         FAITH       Q: What is the difference between faith, belief and confidence ?       A: Faith is a feeling in the whole being; belief is mental; confidence means trust in a person or in the Divine or a feeling of surity about the result of one's seeking or endeavour.         Q: What do people mean by "blind faith" ?       A: The phrase has no real meaning. I suppose they mean they will not believe without proof —but the conclusion formed after proof is not faith, it is knowledge or it is a mental opinion. Faith is something which one has before proof or knowledge and it helps you to arrive at knowledge or experience. There is no pro

     VI         SURRENDER       Q: Is it not possible to transform the being without surrender?       A: If there is no surrender, there can be no transformation of the whole being.         Q,: When does real surrender begin in a sadhak?       A: It begins when there is the true self-offering.         Q: How to bring about true self-offering?       A: By not following ego and desire. It is ego and desire that prevent surrender.         Q,: What is the sign to indicate that a sadhak's determination to surrender to the Divine is having practical effect in his life?       A: The sign is that he has full obedience without q

    II         THE FOUNDATION           Q: When can it be said that a sadhak has laid his foundation in sadhana ?       A: When he has a settled calm and equality and devotion and a continuity of spiritual experience.         Q:What is the right way to establish peace and equality in the nature ?       A: The peace and the equality are there above you, you have to call them down into the mind and vital and the body. And whenever something disturbs, you have to reject the thing that disturbs and the disturbance.         Q: Do calm and equality come down from above by the Mother's Grace?       A: When they descend, it is by the sou