YOGA THROUGH WORKS

In this chapter we shall become acquainted with the question : Where lies the speciality of the sadhana pursued in the Ashram ?

The Western nature is always doing, doing, doing; the Eastern tends to suffer meekly.

If things could be done not under the stress of the ego, man would in time radiate spirituality.

Both East and West yearn for a change—change of the world. But no real change can come without change of consciousness, change of nature. And to bring about this change is our sadhana.

The ideas contained in Sri Aurobindo's writings are not mere ideals. To use his own words : "The Life Divine is not philosophy but fact. It contains what I have realised and seen."¹

Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga is not realisation of bhakti or knowledge alone. Its whole stress is upon a remoulding of the external being. And for that, sadhana through works is a "must". God-service must accompany God-knowledge and God-love.

It is because of the ideal of practical spirituality introduced by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother that service here does not consist in chanting hymns and waving lamps before an idol. They have taught us that work is worship. "Work done in the true spirit is meditation."

The Mother wrote to Sailen : "If you do your work as an offering which you lay in all sincerity at the feet of the Divine, work will do you as much good as meditation."

Sri Aurobindo's Yoga begins with surrender, but unless one

1. Reminiscences and Anecdotes of Sri Aurobindo, compiled by M. P. Pandit, p. 10.

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possesses a thing how can one give it to the Divine ? The Mother solves the riddle : "... What one can give to the Divine is one's body. But that is precisely the thing that one does not give. Yes, try to consecrate your work, your bodily labour..."²

That is perhaps why the start is made here with work. There may be other reasons which the Mother alone can give, but the first thing one is expected to do on being accepted is to interest himself in some work.

We have to learn Yoga by being on our feet and not sitting shut up in a cave.

When someone asked how to meditate, he was told: "It is not necessary to tell you how to meditate; whatever is needful will come of itself if in your work and at all times you are sincere and keep yourself open to the Mother."

Hundreds are here who very rarely sit down for meditation with closed eyes. They are always active. Are they wrong ? Let us not form an opinion in haste. "Those who have an expansive creative vital or a vital made for action are usually at their best when the vital is not held back from its movement and they can develop faster by it than by introspective meditation... It is a mistake to think that to live in introspective meditation all the time is invariably the best or the only way of Yoga."³

Work affords an opportunity to offer the energy we receive from the Divine back to its source—the Divine Himself.

An instance of people giving themselves to the Mother and their work becoming the body's prayer: S was 24 when he sought the Mother's shelter in 1930. His aim had been a brilliant academic career but he missed it. Then he made up his mind to take to the spiritual path like his brother and came to the Ashram. His brother remarked : "You were lazy and shrank from hard labour. Hence your failure." This touched him to the quick. He

2.The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, Part Eight, Nolini Kanta Gupta, p.135.

3.Letters of Sri Aurobindo, Fourth Series, pp. 605-6.

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straightway prayed to the Mother to favour him with the work of grinding wheat. The Mother was pleased to hear this.

"You want to do grinding work?" She asked making the particular movement with her hand. "Very good," she added lovingly.

He set about the work with great enthusiasm, but not being accustomed to hard work and the new grinding stone not moving smoothly, he felt so much pain all over the body that he could not carry even a kuja of water, yet not a word escaped his lips. Not for a few days or weeks but for a year and a half he carried on the work despite its growing volume. He had to grind the wheat twice in order to make it fine, and supply it in time. When Sri Aurobindo came to know of it he said that an electric machine was coming to spare him the strain.

According to S those were the days of extreme physical training. It was the Mother's work, the Mother's word, the Mother's will and he must carry it out; come what might, the work must be done. That was the spirit.

Thus work became the basis of our sadhana and in that form it still continues.

Attitude in Sadhana

To open the "heart's locked doors" the right attitude is the first requisite. The more one is surrendered in his attitude, the wider is his opening to the Mother's force. To open a door one must turn the key the right way. Wrong turning will be sheer waste of time and energy.

The Mother deals with one in accordance with the inner call of his soul and his past evolution. By way of illustrating the point, let us cite two specific cases. The reader may take them in his own light.

M prayed for a few lines from the Mother's pen which he might treasure up for life and try to mould his life accordingly.

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There was no reply.

When he prayed again and showed some insistence he was told : "Nothing comes for the moment. I shall remember your demand."⁴ And he took it in a spirit of surrender and never repeated his prayer though he never got what he wanted.

To S, however, the Mother wrote back almost every time he approached her in writing. He had her free permission to write whatever thought came to his mind, be it perturbations of the vital being or all that happened during the day. There grew up a heap of correspondence between the Mother and him.

Without hesitation he wrote everything good and evil in his nature. The great benefit of all this was that all the crudities of his nature were laid bare before her, which, if kept concealed, would have thrown him off the Path as was seen in the case of many.

Once he wrote: "Mother, what attitude should I take towards women ? There is a part in me which prompts me to go to X. This recalcitrant part impels me to do so, telling me that this is the best means of overcoming any attraction".

The Mother's reply ran : "This is childish; it is always the same trap of the adverse force; if, instead of expressing their advice under cleverly perverted forms, they were to speak of things as they are, it would come to something like this : 'Continue to drink in order to stop being a drunkard' or better: 'Continue to kill to stop being a murderer'."

"If you want to do Yoga, you must take more and more in all matters, small or great, the Yogic attitude."⁵

"The right attitude is to be devoted and given to the Mother and to wish to be whatever she wants you to be."⁶

Before coming here, R had made up his mind that he would never accept the work of teaching but when called on to do so he

4.Quoted from memory.

5. Bases of Yoga, p. 153.

6.Sri Aurobindo on Himself and on the Mother, p. 727.

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bowed to the Mother's decision without a word.

Even as a novice he was prepared to do any menial work that was assigned to him. The cheerfulness with which he did the work of pulling the food cart and carrying the tiffin boxes from door to door showed plasticity in his nature, though he was hard as steel in the execution of the Mother's orders whatever they might be. "...the true attitude for a Yogi is to be plastic and ready to obey the Divine Command whatever it may be, nothing must be indispensable to him, nothing a burden."

"Demands should not be made; what you receive freely from the Mother helps you; what you demand or try to impose on her is bound to be empty of her force."⁷(8.3.1930)

We have seen what was R's attitude to work when he joined the Ashram in 1938. This letter was written in 1930 and it saw the light of day in 1953 when K put our letters in book form after the passing of the Master. Before this all letters were our personal property and we preserved them as our treasures. I happened to see them long after their publication. But this was the attitude of the inmates of the Ashram when I came in 1932. If I am asked to say, without having a look at these letters, what contributed to our developing such an attitude, straight would be my reply : "The atmosphere of the Ashram, the luminous personalities of the Mother and the Master. That was and is far more than any spoken or written word."

One or two instances more before we go farther:

In the beginning we had to buy bread from the market. What a relief it was that Indian chapati was not introduced. How hard it would be to feed an ever-increasing number ! Someone was needed who could prepare bread in bulk. When X prayed to be allowed to join the Ashram he was asked to learn bread-making and then come. On his arrival the bakery was started.

Jotindranath, who was to take charge later, then worked under

7. Sri Aurobindo on Himself and on the Mother, p. 707.

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him. At the time the bakery was in a house in front of the Ashram. Kneading was done by hand as there was no machine for it. So the work had to begin at 4 a. m. Now our bakery feeds from 1500 to 2000 mouths a day.

The love and devotion with which J carried out his tedious and tiresome work for years and years was remembered by many when he left his body on July 2,1965. Relaxing in an easy chair he had been talking with his sister in the evening and all of a sudden he breathed his last. On his passing the Mother wrote :

"The sudden departure of Jotindranath is a painful loss for all here. He was perfect in consecration and honest in his work, a man on whom one could count, a truly exceptional virtue. He has gone into the solar light and is having conscious rest to which he has truly the right."(5.7.65)

On the occasion of the first anniversary of Jotindra, P wrote to the Mother a number of questions to which She replied.

Q : I often meet Jotindra in dream and find him extremely happy. One day he stood before me, inclined on my table and said : "I had no chance to tell you anything while departing because Sri Aurobindo's call urged me to run to him." Is there any truth in this dream, Mother ?

Mother : This dream is certainly true because Jotindra has gone straight on to rejoin Sri Aurobindo.

Q: Does the soul which is conscious of you take its new birth immediately after its departure ? Or is it obliged to wait for a long time?

Mother : Each psychic being fully conscious and developed is free to choose what will be its next existence and when this existence will take place.

Q : Does the soul after its birth return to the Ashram to accomplish Your Divine Mission ?

Mother: Generally this is its choice when it reincarnates next.

Q : Is the soul capable of choosing its birth and enjoying the

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happiness of the life of the Ashram ?

Mother: If fully developed, it is capable of it.

Q: What is the relation between the supramental light and the solar light?

Mother: The solar light is the symbol of the supramental light.

Bread-making needed constant attention. In between if he could snatch even two minutes, J would utilise it in writing out a line or two from the Mother's or Master's works.

On being asked why he wrote instead of reading them he would say in reply : "Writing things enters into the being while off goes from the mind what is read."

J used to say that due to work one never got tired. If one worked out of joy it would not make one tired.

This cannot be said of vital joy :

"Vital joy though it is a very helpful thing for the ordinary human life, is something excited, eager, mobile without a settled basis—that is why it soon gets tired and cannot continue. Vital joy has to be replaced by a quiet settled psychic gladness with the mind and vital very clear and very peaceful. When one works on this basis, then everything becomes glad and easy, in touch with the Mother's force and fatigue or depression do not come."⁸

J always cared for work first, all else afterwards. According to Sri Aurobindo, when there is a readiness to subject everything to the divine yoke, it means the necessary stage has been reached for conversion. When the time was approaching fast for harvesting what was sown in his life he had to leave the earthly scene.

For him work was worship. In the opinion of one of his coworkers his whole life was worship.

He reared and cherished a great longing in his heart that he may

Instances can be cited of how Yoga cannot be cut off by death.

8. On Yoga II, Tome One,

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X was suffering for a pretty long time. One day a feeling arose in him : "What is the use of keeping the body which can give no service to the Mother?" From his death-bed he sent a letter to the Mother.

On receiving the Mother's reply his son gave it to him to read and went out to do something. While reading he passed away with the Mother's letter laid upon his breast and with his hands upon it.

When his son approached the Mother she said, "He had been waiting for the letter. He wants to come back to the Ashram in his next life. Does your sister love him ?"

"How can I say, Mother ?"

"The normal way is that the soul comes as a son of the daughter. However, I shall see to it."

Work as Worship

The devotion with which the first few inmates took up the Ashram work was exemplary. The undercurrent of love and devotion with which the Mother's work is done in the Ashram seems to be the same as was in the case of the first group of inmates.

Speak to anyone, even to a child, of the Ashram and say, 'the work is for the Mother', and his whole attitude will change. He will do his utmost, strain every nerve to bring as much beauty and perfection as possible into the work assigned to him. Thus the work, whatever its form, is raised to the level of worship.

One of the many conditions of raising the work to the level of worship is to bring into it perfect perfection. The Mother attaches great importance to this aspect of our work—its perfection.

What does it imply ?

"...Even what is apparently the most insignificant thing must be done with perfect perfection, with a sense of cleanliness, beauty, harmony and order. For example, when you sweep a room

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you must try to make it as clean as a first-class operation-theatre."

One can see what effort is made in the life of the Ashram to come up to this ideal.

If while at work one feels pulled down, troubled by failures or elated by success, that is not Karmayoga. Nor is the gate of heaven likely to open to one simply because one has taken up the Ashram life.

To follow the subtle lines of Karmayoga is not easy, far less to live them. Once X said that it took him more than twenty years to understand the principles of Karmayoga. So thick was the "coating of falsehood" in him, he added, that for years together not once did it strike him to put in action even an iota of the Mother's teachings.

For those who do the sadhana through works the first injunction of the Gita is to give up all desire for fruit. Because it is desire that keeps us tied down to "the world of Ignorance". It is "the blind Desire that drives the world."⁹ Sri Aurobindo has called it "the great harasser of man."

A life may pass, yet we may not be able to learn the first lesson of the Gita.

The remedy is to remain satisfied with what is given by the "indwelling Divine and not to desire at all."¹⁰

When the soul claims nothing, seeks pleasure in nothing then only it will have self-delight—atmarati of the Gita.

"Let us work as we pray for indeed work is the body's best prayer to the Divine."

Reading this prayer a visiting Sannyasi hastened the remark: "If that is so then the whole world is doing yoga."

Good God ! These words are not from one who is a stranger to the principles of Yoga, but a voracious reader and a true seeker of Light!

9. The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 91.

10. Ibid., p. 324.

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People in the world work to earn money, whereas the very basic aim of the Ashram is to do all work as "an offering to the Divine."¹¹

To make the offering pure and perfect requires arduous sadhana.

If you want to be a true worker, you "must" have, says Sri Aurobindo, "the consciousness of the divine presence in your heart and the divine guidance in your acts."¹²

The force of must should be taken note of.

R had been a Sannyasi from the age of 21. He was virtually idolised by the people in his surroundings. His influence radiated over all classes of people. His first touch with the Ashram was through the Mother's Blessing flowers. He thought if her blessing flowers could move him to his depths, how much more he would gain by being accepted by the Mother ?

When he came here he was given the work of washing vessels in the dining room. He applied himself to the work with the same ardent devotion as had marked his day-and-night meditation and reading of religious books.

The ease with which he shed religious samskaras is proof of his plasticity, so essential to Sri Aurobindo's Yoga. But samska ras are not so easy to reject outright. Years passed; a string of tulsi beads remained round his neck as the last remnant. But a day came which saw R shorn of all externals.

Years later he had to go out to open a centre. On his way he halted at his native place. There he was requested by college students to speak on the life in Sri Aurobindo Ashram.

Some of these students who later came to the Ashram and saw him washing vessels could not believe their eyes. When in

11."That was my very first basis in forming the Ashram, that the work done must be an offering to the Divine." The Mother. Bulletin, August 1964, p. 45.

12.Sri Aurobindo on Himself and on the Mother, p. 707.

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utter amazement they asked— "You, you sir, washing vessels ?"

"Yes, this is my Puja", came his smiling answer.

But there are Pujas and Pujas. An ordinary type of Puja cannot go on for long. If continued by force, one cannot but feel bored. For us Puja covers every detail of living. We need to remember: "...the true movement is when walking, working or speaking, one is still in sadhana."

The spirit behind the work should be the spirit of dedication and not personal preference.

K was given the work of washing vessels whenever he came. He did not like the work and always grumbled. In spite of all attempts he could never prolong his stay nor could make his stay happy and peaceful. Yet several of his acquaintances have found abiding shelter at the Mother's feet. One of them, on being accepted as a permanent member feared that he might be given the same work. And so on being accepted he prayed for some work in a store. Though his request was acceded to, yet for six years until he was given another work by the Mother, he felt a haunting repentance that he had not allowed himself to be governed and guided by the Mother's choice.

A higher stage will be reached if one learns to work "without being involved."

A still higher stage would be when "work will be nothing more than a ripple."¹³ It is hard even to conceive. Could it ever be possible, say, for the commander of a battalion to lead his men to victory if he remained uninvolved in the action ? Would the Gita want him to meditate or close his eyes to hear the inner voice every time he has to give directions ? If that were the injunction of the Gita, could it have its high place among the world scriptures ?

This question suggests another: How can yoga be applied to

13. Whatever action is unavoidable, must be a purely superficial working of the organs..." The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 369.

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life ? An answer will be found analysed later on.

Let us study this problem more closely in the light of The Synthesis of Yoga. The Gita speaks of things in the abstract, in their essence. Take, for instance, equality.¹⁴ The word occurs in the Gita again and again but it does not specify how to cultivate it, why so much stress is laid upon it and what it leads to. Sri Aurobindo has elucidated these points exhaustively, impressively, convincingly and with such natural ease as if Sri Krishna himself was clarifying his mysteries to lead the sinking soul, step by step, to the goal. The way he gives life and light to whatever subject he touches is his own. The pen that during the Swadeshi days put forth flaming tongues of fire now releases blissful streams of nectar.

One instance will suffice to show how X was saved from following a wrong path in the name of the Gita. In order to strike the best bargain he would set the shopkeepers in competition. For this he would at times make false statements. The thought that he was doing all for the sake of the Divine justified him in his own eyes. There was no trace of personal gain. If he pocketed anything he could feel guilty. For years not a shadow of doubt crossed his mind. He would exclaim that Arjuna had to kill even his kith and kin for the sake of the Divine. What did it matter to him if he had to tell a lie for the sake of the Divine ? Such things could not bind a disinterested worker. This state of things continued for years. One day the Ashram Manager made an incidental remark that one should not tell a lie even in a divine cause.

The sadhak wrote the whole story of his work to Sri Aurobindo in the strong hope of having his support. The reply came: "Bargain cannot be avoided as the shopkeepers overcharge, but it should be done without making any untrue statement."

14. a) "...equality ... means to endure firmly and calmly..." On Yoga II,

b) Also see The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 652.

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He was dumbfounded. For years he had practised falsehood in the name of the Truth. Now he realised why Sri Krishna had said:

Mysterious are the ways of the work.

He vowed that not a single word of untruth should now escape his lips. But the force of habit was too strong for an immediate check. On his writing to the Mother about his inability the Mother wrote back: "It is a weakness and you must conquer it."

This shows what lies hidden within those two lines of Sri Aurobindo's letter. There are hundreds of such letters to show how the true life-structure of a sadhak is built up, brick by brick, by the Mother and Sri Aurobindo.

Despite all attempts, why does the tongue lend itself to lies ?

Because of the "past habit of the vital." It is this that makes us "repeatedly go into the external part." Not only does it resist any change but revolts against it. The Master's counsel is : "You must persist and establish the opposite habit of living in your inner being which is your true being and of looking at everything from there." The precept appears in the Master's writings again and again.

But how is one to go within and act from there ? This is our greatest problem.

The Gita wants us to fight—fight the battle of life but without any kind of inner perturbation, any sort of inner fever: yudhyasva vigatajvarah. But however one tries to remain conscious and not to lose temper, the moment the vital ego is hit, all sense of the Mother's Force doing the work evaporates and the blood begins to boil. Even after the vehemence of anger is gone, the storm goes on gathering within, looking for an opportunity to hit back. That is why Yoga through works is much more difficult than through meditation.

In the course of his narration L said that not months but scores

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of years had passed, still he found no change¹⁵ in himself. Even a trivial thing done against his will would provoke his fury. And the provocation was too sudden for even a thought of control. This may give some idea of how difficult it is to change one's nature, change one's consciousness.

People are not able to understand our method of sadhana through works because they cannot avoid the influence of ancient tradition. It is for this that we had to bring in all this in order to explain the undercurrent of sadhana pursued here.

To resume. The mind of the commander has to be like a teleprinter which records only what is transmitted from above or is revealed from within. But—

"Few are the silences in which Truth is heard..."¹⁶

Even here lurks the danger of becoming a toy in the hands of the devil in the name of the Divine.

When one is fortunate enough to reach this stage, work goes on effortlessly like the flow of a river. He has no desire, no will¹⁷ of his own. No choice of work with an eye to gain. The inner remains calm and collected; one begins to feel clearly that a power is there which is not only planning but executing also, which knows what to do and how to do it. Work so done is real worship.

Space forbids further dwelling on the subject. We shall only touch on some of its practical aspects in the next chapter.

15."...it used to be said that it needed 35 years to change one's character !" Bulletin, August 1964, p. 43.

16.Savitri, p. 773.

17.This consecration of the will helps one efface the ego and its motive power of desire. "In the end...one arrives at a consciousness in which one feels the Force or Presence acting within and moving or governing all the actions and the personal will is entirely surrendered... In the nature there is a more powerful and many-sided change..." The Life Divine, pp. 803-804.

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