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ATTACHMENT If you are to do this Yoga, you must have only one desire and aspiration; you should make the submission and surrender sincere, real and complete. It cannot be as long as you cherish vital attachment to family, child or anything or anybody else. In Yoga friendship can remain but attachment has to fall away or any such engrossing affection as would keep one tied to the ordinary life and consciousness. Any attachment or restlessness comes in the way of a spiritual working. Train yourself to look calmly without disturbance and simply see what has to be done and quietly will it; it is so that the ordinary consent of the Nature-forces can be overtopped and overcome. Even after the liberation, one has to remain vigilant for often these things go out and remain at a far distance, waiting to see if under any circumstances in any condition they can make a rush and recover their kingdom. If there has been an entire purification down to Page-146 the depths and nothing is there to open the gate, then they cannot do it. Attachment is attachment in whatever part of the being it may be. In order to be unattached one must be unattached everywhere, in the mental, vital and physical action. To become indifferent to the attraction of outer objects is one of the first rules of Yoga, for this non-attachment liberates the inner being into peace and the true consciousness. The Mother : The attitude of the ascetic who says, "I want nothing" and the attitude of the man of the world who says, "I want this thing" are the same. The one may be as much attached to h is renunciation as the other to his possession. You must accept all things-and only those things that come from the Divine. Because things can come from concealed desires under disguise.
If desire is not mastered, how can there be any straight walking on the straight
path ? All desires and attachmerits
Page-147 are vital, all self-indulgence also. To reach the freedom without the discipline and development is given to few. Ambition and vanity are things so natural to the human consciousness—they have even their use in ordinary life. But they have to be pushed out before one is far on this path—otherwise they are very dangerous attendants and can pervert both aspiration and siddhi. The Mother : First of all he must give up his desires, whoever wants to follow this path; for desire is the most obscure and the most obscuring movement of the lower nature. Desires are motions of weakness and ignorance and they keep you chained to your weakness and to your ignorance. It is the same with all the lower impulses, jealousy or envy, hatred or violence, because they do not belong to the true nature of the Divine. To conquer a desire brings more joy than to satisfy it. Greed for anything concerning physical conveniences so called necessities and comfort of whatever nature these are—is one of the most serious obstacles to sadhana. Page-148 Each little satisfaction you get through greed is one step backward from the goal. Depression prevents the Force from flowing through and calls in the adverse forces and gives them a chance to destroy the helpful formations that are made. However or from where soever it came, the only thing to do with a depression is to throw it out. These feelings of despair and exaggerated sense of self-depreciation and helplessness are suggestions of a hostile Force and should never be admitted. The transformation of the external being is the most difficult part of the Yoga and it demands faith, patience, quietude and firm determination. One must be more obstinate than the obstinate material nature and persevere until the light and truth can take permanent hold of the parts which are still responsive to the old movements. The sadder you are and the more you lament, the farther you go away from me. The Divine is not sad and for realising the Divine you must reject far from yourself all sadness and all sentimental weakness.
A depression is always unreasonable and it leads nowhere. It is the most subtle enemy of the Yoga.
Page-149 Be courageous and do not think so much of yourself. It is because you make your little ego the centre of your preoccupation that you are sad and unsatisfied. To forget oneself is the great remedy for all ills. Do not be troubled by your surroundings and their oppositions. These conditions are often imposed at first as a kind of ordeal. If you can remain tranquil and undisturbed and continue your sadhana without allowing yourself to be inwardly troubled under these circumstances, it will help to give you a much needed strength; for the path of Yoga is always beset with inner and outer difficulties and the sadhaka must develop a quiet, firm and solid strength to meet them. All who enter the spiritual path have to face the difficulties and ordeals of the path, those which rise from their own nature and those which come in from outside. The difficulties in the nature always rise again and again till you overcome them; they must be faced with both strength and patience. But the vital part is prone to depression when ordeals and difficulties rise. But you must train yourself to overcome this reaction of depression, calling in the Mother's Force to aid you.
All who cleave to the path steadfastly can be sure of their spiritual destiny. If anyone fails to reach it, it can
Page-150 only be for one of the two reasons, either because they leave the path or because for some lure of ambition, vanity, desire, etc. they go astray from the sincere dependence on the Divine. The Divine is there, but He does not ignore the conditions, the laws, the circumstances of Nature; it is under these conditions that He does all His Work, His work in the world and in man and Consequendy also in the sadhaka, the aspirant, even in the God-knower and God-lover; even the saint and the sage continue to have difficulties and to be limited by their human nature.
In the ordinary life people accept the vital movements, anger, desire, greed, sex, etc. as natural, allowable and legitimate things, part of the human nature. Only so far as society discourages them or insists to keep them within fixed limits or subject to a decent restraint or measure, people try to control them so as to conform to the social standard of morality or rule of conduct. Here, on the contrary, as in all spiritual life, the conquest and complete mastery of these things is demanded. That is why the struggle is more felt, not because these things rise more strongly in sadhaks than in ordinary men, but because of the intensity of the struggle between the spiritual mind which demands control and the vital
Page-151 movements which rebel and want to continue in the new as they did in the old life. You should know perfectly well that, in our Yoga, pain and suffering and struggle and excesses of despair are natural—though not inevitable on the way—not because they are helps but because they are imposed on us by the darkness of this human nature out of which we have to struggle into the Light. Nobody has ever said that the spiritual change was an easy thing; all spiritual seekers will say that it is difficult but supremely worth doing. If one's desire for the Divine has become the master desire, then surely one can give one's whole life to it without repining and not grudge the time, difficulty or labour.
That does not mean that those whose faith is not so strong or surrender complete cannot arrive, but usually they have at first to go by small steps and to face the difficulties of their nature until by perseverance or tapasya they make a sufficient opening. Even a faltering faith and a slow and partial surrender have their force and their result, otherwise only the rare few could do sadhana at all.
Page-152 Obstacles are there—they are part of Nature and they have to be overcome. The Mother's help is always there but you are not conscious of it except when the psychic is active and the consciousness not clouded. He is quite right in saying that the heaviness of these attacks was due to the fact that you had taken up the sadhana in earnest and were approaching, as one might say, the gates of the Kingdom of Light. That always makes these forces rage and they strain every nerve and use or create every opportunity to turn the sadhak back or, if possible, drive him out of the path altogether by their suggestions, their violent influences and their exploitations of all kinds of incidents that always crop up more and more when these conditions prevail, so that he may not reach the gates.....People nowadays seek the explanation for everything in their ignorant reason, their surface experience and in outside happenings. They do not see the hidden forces and inner causes......These forces find their point d'appui in the sadhak himself, in the ignorant parts of his consciousness and its assent to their suggestions and influences.......
It is inevitable once one enters into this Yoga that the difficulties should rise up and they go on rising up so long as anything of them is left in the system at all.
Page-153 What is needed to pass through difficulties is sincerity and perseverance. This Yoga is a spiritual battle; its very attempt raises all sorts of adverse forces and one must be ready to face difficulties, sufferings, reverses of all sorts in a calm unflinching spirit. The difficulties that come are ordeals and tests and if one meets them in the right spirit, one comes out stronger and spiritually purer and greater. When there is an attack from the human instruments of adverse forces, one should try to overcome it not in a spirit of personal hatred or anger or wounded egoism, but with a calm spirit of strength and equanimity and a call to the Divine Force to act. Success or failure lies with the Divine. One should then seek out this weakness in oneself and correct it. No weakness, no arrogance or violence, this should be the spirit.
When difficulties arise, remain quiet within and call down the Mother's Force to remove them. The Mother's Force is not only above on the summit of the being. It
Page-154 is there with you and near you, ready to act whenever your nature will allow it. It is so with everybody here. However strong the attack may be, and even if it overcomes for the time being, still it will rapidly pass away if you have formed the habit of opening to the Mother. The peace will come back if you remain quiet and keep yourself open to it and to the Force. Once something of the Truth has shown itself within you, it will always, even if for a time heavily clouded over with wrong movements, shine out again like the sun in heaven. Therefore persevere with confidence and - never lose courage. Outer difficulties or inconveniences you should not allow to alarm or depress you. Inner difficulties should also be met with detachment, calm, equality, the unshakable will to conquer. These small desires obstruct greatly the change in the outer consciousness and the being must be free from them if the transformation is not to be hampered there.
A solid mind, a solid nervous system, and a steady psychic flame seem to be the only safeguard against "terrible attacks" in sadhana. If such things did not happen there would be no need of a fight day and night.
Page-155 It is a period when doubt, denial, dryness, grey ness and all kindred things come up with a great force and often reign completely for a time. It is after this stage has been successfully crossed that the true light begins to come, the light which is not of the mind but of the spirit. It does not really indicate any radical disability in the nature but certainly it is a hard ordeal and one has to stick very firmly to pass through it. This always comes in the way when one wants to progress in one's sadhana, but in the end if one is sincere in one's aspiration these troubles help to prepare the victory of the soul over all that opposes.
The real difficulty is always in ourselves, not in our surroundings. There are three things necessary in order to make men invincible : Will, Disinterestedness and Faith. We may have a will to emancipate ourselves, but sufficient faith may be lacking. We may have faith in our ultimate emancipation, but the will to use the necessary means may be wanting. And even if there are will and faith, we may use them with a violent attachment to the fruit of our work or with passions of hatred, blind excitement or hasty forcefulness which may produce evil reactions. For this reason it is necessary, in a work of such magnitude, to have resort to a higher Power than that of mind and body in order to overcome
Page-156 unprecedented obstacles. This is the need of Sadhana. The path is long, but self-surrender makes it short; the way is difficult, but perfect trust makes it easy. The force that can do it, exists. But it is hidden in a secret chamber within us and of that chamber God holds the key. Let us find Him and claim it. The Mother : The difficulties are always due to a resistance, some part or several parts of the being refusing to receive the force, the consciousness and the light put upon them and revolting against the divine influence. But to keep steady one's aspiration and to look at oneself with an absolute sincerity are the sure means to overcome all obstacles.
When you feel unhappy like that, it means that you have a progress to make. You can say that we always need to progress ; it is true. But at times our nature gives its consent to the needed change and then everything goes smoothly, even happily. On the contrary,, sometimes the part that has to progress refuses to move and clings to its old habits through ignorance, inertia, attachment or desire. Then, under the pressure of"
Page-157 the perfecting Force, the struggle starts translating itself into unhappiness or revolt, or both together. The only remedy is to keep quiet, look within oneself honesty to find out what is wrong and set to work courageously to put it right; and the more sincere your endeavour, the more the Divine consciousness will help and assist you. Don't' let anything from outside approach and disturb you. What people think, do or say is of little importance. The only thing that counts is your relation with the Divine. The sufferings and miseries are not meant for the benefit of their souls, it is only very strong beings who can find an inner benefit in sufferings ; they are the result of the world's resistance to the Divine action. The best each sadhak can do is to conquer in himself this resistance. Efface the stamp of ego from the heart and let the love of the Mother take its place. Cast from the mind all insistence on your personal ideas and judgment, then you will have the wisdom to understand her. Let there be no obsession of self-will, ego-drive in the action, love Page-158 of personal authority, attachment to personal preference, then the Mother's force will be able to act clearly in you and you will get the inexhaustible energy for which you ask and your service will be perfect. The sooner you get rid of abhiman the better. Anyone who indulges abhiman (ego) puts himself under the influence of the hostile forces. Pride is only one form-of ego—there are then ten thousand others. Every action of man is full of ego— the good ones as well as the bad, his humility as much as his pride, his virtues as much as his vices. To get the ego out of the human nature is not so simple as that. If one is free from ego, does nothing with reference to himself or for his own sake but only for the Divine and all his thoughts and feelings are for the Divine, then he is Jivanmukta and a Siddha Yogi. The egoism of the instrument can be as dangerous or more dangerous to spiritual progress than the egoism of the doer. The ego-sense is contrary to spiritual realisation. There should be no big I, not even a small one.
For the ego, however insistent it may be, one has to keep one's eye on it and say no to all its suggestions so
Page-159 that each position it takes up proves to be a fruitless move. It is only by a constant quiet vigilance and increasing consciousness that it can be got out—for if it is not allowed to play, it conceals itself and takes subtle and disguised forms. Without the liberation of the psychic and the realisation of the true Self the ego cannot go, both are necessary. Liberation comes by loss of ego and desire. To get rid of ego is as difficult as to make a complete surrender. Very few people in the Ashram are conscious of their ego-centricity. They are all ego-centric and they do not realise their ego-centricity. Even in their sadhana the 'F is always there,—my sadhana, my progress, my everything. The remedy is to think constantly of the Divine, not of oneself, to work, to act, do sadhana for the Divine; not to consider how this or that affects me personally, not to claim anything, but to refer all to the Divine.
The ego-centric man feels and takes things as they affect him. Does this please me or displease, give me gladness or pain,
latter my pride, vanity, ambition or hurt it, satisfy my desires or thwart them, etc. The unegoistic man does not look at things like that. He
Page-160 looks to see what things are in themselves and would be if he were not there, what is their meaning, how they fit into the scheme of things—or else he feels calm and equal, refers everything to the Divine. There can be many points of view which are not ego-centric. Self-justification keeps the wrong movement going because it gives a mental support. Self-justification is always a sign of ego and ignorance. When one has a wider consciousness, one knows that each one has his own way of looking at things and finds in that way his own justification, so that both parties in a quarrel believe themselves to be on the right. It is only when one looks from above in a consciousness clear of ego that one sees all sides of a thing and also their real truth. It is the petty ego in each that likes to discover and talk about the "real or unreal" defects of others. The ego has no right to judge them, because it has not the right view or the right spirit. It is only the calm, disinterested, dispassionate, all-compassionate and all-loving Spirit that can judge and see rightly the strength and weakness in each being. When a dangerous habit of constant self-justification becomes strong in the sadhak, it is impossible to turn him in this part of his being to the right consciousness Page-161 and action because at each step his whole preoccupation is to justify himself. His mind rushes at once to maintain his own idea, his own position or his own course of action. This he is ready to do by any kind of argument, sometimes the most clumsy and foolish. This Yoga can only be done to the end by those who are in total earnest about it and ready to abolish their little human ego and its demands in order to find themselves in the Divine. It cannot be done in a spirit of levity or laxity; the work is too high and difficult, the adverse powers in the lower Nature too ready to take advantage of the least sanction or the smallest opening, the aspiration and tapasya needed too constant and intense. All ambition, pride and vanity must disappear from the thoughts and the feelings. All falsehood must be rejected from the speech, thought and action and all ostentation, arrogance and insolence.
The earth-consciousness does not want to change so it rejects what comes down to it from above—it has always done so. It is only if those who have taken this Yoga open themselves and are willing to change their lower nature that this unwillingness can disappear.
Page-162 What stands in the way of course is always the vital ego with its ignorance and the pride of its ignorance and the physical consciousness with its inertia which resents and resists any call to change and its indolence which does not like to take the trouble—it finds it more comfortable to go on its own way repeating always the same old movements and, at best, expecting everything to be done for it in some way at some time. The first thing is to have the right inner attitude; the rest is the will to transform oneself and the vigilance to perceive and reject all that belongs to the ego and the tamasic persistence of the lower nature. Finally, to keep oneself always open to the Mother in every part of the being so that the process of transformation may find no hindrance. Egoism is part of the machinery—a tool of the universal forces. It is only when one gets into touch with a higher Nature that it is possible to get free of this rule of ego and subjection to these forces.
The ego is by its nature a smallness of being; it brings contraction of the consciousness and with the contraction limitation of knowledge, disabling ignorance,— confinement and a diminution of power and by that diminution incapacity and weakness—scission of oneness
Page-163 and by that scission disharmony and failure of sympathy and love and understanding,—inhibition or fragmentation of delight of being and by that fragmentation pain and sorrow. To recover what is lost we must break out of the worlds of ego. The Mother : Those who are capable of extending the consciousness as wide as the world, become the world ; but those who are shut up in their little bodies and limited feelings stop at those limits ; their bodies and their petty feelings are to them their whole self. If you are truly surrendered to the Divine, in the right manner and totally, then at every moment you will be what you ought to be, you will do what you ought to do, you will know what you ought to know. But for that you should have transcended all the limitations of ego.
To feel hurt by what others do or think or say is always a sign of weakness and proof that the whole being is not exclusively turned towards the Divine, not under the divine influence alone. And then instead of bringing with oneself the divine atmosphere made of love,
tolerance,
Page-164 understanding, patience, it is one's ego that throws itself in response to another's with stiffness and hurt feelings and the disharmony is aggravated. All dread of fire or other violent forces should be overcome. For dread shows a weakness—the free spirit can stand fearless before even the biggest forces of Nature. If you are afraid of the hostile forces when they try to come, you expose yourself to their power. The Mother: Once you enter the path of Yoga you must get rid of all fears—the fears of your mind, the fears of your vital, the fears of your body which are lodged in its very cells. One who seeks the transformation and is a follower of the Path, must become through and through fearless, not to be touched or shaken by anything whatever in any part of his nature.
Generally speaking, the greatest obstacle perhaps that hinders man's progress is fear. Of all kinds of fear the most subtle and the most clinging is that of death.
Page-165 One can conquer that alone which one fears not, and he who fears death has already been vanquished by Death. The first and the most important thing is to know that life is one and immortal. Only the forms, countless in number, are transient and brittle. Life then does not die; but the forms are dissolved, and it is this dissolution that the physical consciousness fears. And yet the form changes constantly and there is nothing that debars this change from being progressive. One who craves for death may have to wait long to get it and one who fears it may be struck down suddenly in spite of all precautions taken.... Beyond all the emotions, in the silent and quiet depths of our being, there is a light burning constantly, the light of the psychic consciousness. Go in search of this light, concentrate upon it; it is within you. With a persevering will you will surely find it. As soon as you enter into it, you awake to the sense of immortality. You feel you have always lived, you will live always.
It is the attachment to food, the greed and eagerness for it, making it an unduly important thing in the life, that is contrary to the spirit of Yoga. To be aware that something is pleasant to the palate is not wrong; only
Page-166 one must have no desire nor hankering for it. There should be neither eagerness nor repugnance. To be always thinking about food and troubling the mind is quite the wrong way of getting rid of the food-desire. Do not trouble your mind about food. Take it in the right quantity (neither too much nor too little), without greed or repulsion, as the means given you by the Mother for the maintenance of the body, in the right spirit, offering it to the Divine in you. It is no part of this Yoga to suppress taste, rasa, altogether. What is to be got rid of is vital desire and attachment, the greed of food, being overjoyed at getting the food you like, sorry and discontented when you do not have it, giving an undue importance to it. Equality is here the test as in so many other matters. It is not necessary to have desire or greed of food in order to eat. The Yogi eats not out of desire, but to maintain the body. It is a mistake to neglect the body and let it waste away; the body is the means of the sadhana and should be maintained in good order. There should be no attachment to it, but no contempt or neglect either of the material part of our nature. Page-167 Spiritually, I should say that the effect of food depends more on the occult atmosphere and influences that come with it than on anything in the food itself. Vegetarianism is another question altogether; it stands, on a will not to do harm to the more conscious forms of life for the satisfaction of the belly. No Yoga can be done without sufficient food and sleep. Fasting or sleeplessness makes the nerves morbid and excited and weaken the brain and lead to delusions and fantasies. Fasting is not permissible in the Ashram, as its practice is more often harmful than helpful to the spiritual endeavour. Prolonged fasting may lead to an excitation of the nervous being which often brings vivid imaginations and hallucinations that are taken for true experiences; such fasting is frequently suggested by the vital Entities, because it puts the consciousness into an unbalanced state which favours their designs. It is therefore discouraged here.
Too much eating makes the body material and heavy, eating too little makes it weak and nervous—one has to find the true harmony and balance between the body's need and the food taken.
Page-168 The Mother: It is an inner attitude of freedom from attachment and from greed of food and desire of the palate that is needed, not undue diminution of the quantity taken or any self-starvation. One must take sufficient food for the maintenance of the body and its strength and health but without attachment or desire.
That is what happens along with the meal that you take, you absorb also, in a large or small measure, the consciousness of the animal whose flesh you swallow. Of course it is nothing serious, but it is not always pleasant. Yet obviously it does not help you to be more on the side of man than on that of the animal kind. Primitive men, we know, were much nearer the animal level and used to take raw meat: that gave them evidently more strength
and energy than cooked meat.....Also it was for this reason
perhaps that there was in their intestines an organ called the appendix in a much bigger size than it is now: for it had to digest raw meat. As men, however, started cooking their food and found it more tasty that way, the organ too gradually diminished in size and fell into atrophy; now it does not serve any purpose, it is an encumbrance and often a source of illness. This means that it is time to change the diet and take to something less bestial. It depends, however, on the state of the consciousness
Page-169 of each person. An ordinary man, who leads an ordinary life, has ordinary aspirations, thinks of nothing else than earning his livelihood, keeping good health and rearing a family, need not pick and choose, except on purely hygienic grounds. He may eat meat or anything else that he considers helpful and useful, doing good to him. But if you wish to move from the ordinary life to a higher life, the problem acquires an interest. And again, for a higher life if you wish to move up still farther and prepare yourself for transformation, then the problem becomes very important. For there are certain foods that help the body to become more refined and others that keep it down to the level of animal hood. But it is only then that the question acquires an importance, not before. Before you come to that point, you have a lot of other things to do. It is certainly better to purify your mind, purify your vital before you think of purifying your body...... You must begin from within. I have said a hundred times, you must begin from above. You must purify first the higher region and then purify the lower. I do not mean by this that you should give yourself up to all the licences that degrade the body. I am not advising you not to control your desires. What I mean is this: do not try to be an angel in the body before you are already something of the kind in your mind and in your vital. For that will bring about a dislocation, a lack of balance. Page-170 The hostile forces make it their function to attack and disturb the sadhaks, but if there were no wrong movement and no imperfection and weakness, they should not be disturbed. Tests are applied not by the Divine but by the forces of the lower planes—mental, vital, physical—and allowed by the Divine because that is part of the soul's training and helps it to know itself, its powers and the limitations it has to outgrow. The Mother is not testing you at every moment, but rather helping you at every moment to rise beyond the necessity of tests and difficulties which belong to the inferior consciousness. Those who fall, fall not because of the attacks of the vital forces, but because they put themselves on the side of the hostile Forces and prefer a vital ambition or desire to the spiritual siddhi.
Hostile forces attack every sadhak; some are conscious of it, others are not. Their object is either to influence the person or to use him or to spoil his sadhana or the work or any other motive of the kind. Their object is not to test, but their attack may be used by the guiding power as a test.
Page-171 The hostile forces do not need a cause for attacking— they attack whenever and whoever they can. What one has to see is that nothing responds or admits them. There are no sadhaks who are never attacked by wrong forces—but if one has a complete faith and self-consecration, one can throw off the attack without too much difficulty. The hostile forces are there in the world to maintain the Ignorance-—they were there in the sadhana, because they had the right to test the sincerity of the sadhaks in their power and will to cleave to the Divine and overcome all difficulties. But this is only so long as the higher Light has not descended into the physical.
In Yoga, as in every great or serious human effort, there is always bound to be an abundance of adverse interventions and unfavourable circumstances which have to be overcome. To give them too great an importance increases their importance and their power to multiply themselves, gives them, as it were, confidence in themselves and the habit of coming. To face them with equanimity, diminishes their importance and effect and in the end, though not at once, gets rid of their persistence and recurrence. It is therefore a principle in Yoga to recognise the determining power of what is
Page-172 within us—for that is the deeper truth—to set that right and establish the inward strength as against the power of outward circumstances. The strength is there —even in the weakest; one has to find it, to unveil it and to keep it in front throughout the journey and the battle. About the attacks and the action of the cosmic forces —these attacks very ordinarily become violent when the progress is becoming rapid and on the way to be definite —specially if they find they cannot carry out an effective aggression into the inner being, they try to shake by outside assault. One must take it as a trial of strength, a call for gathering all one's capacities of calm and openness to the Light and Power, so as to make oneself an instrument for the victory of the Divine over the undivine, of the Light over the darkness in the world tangle. It is in this spirit that you must face these difficulties till the higher things are so confirmed in you that these forces can attack no longer.
In the cosmos, there are the higher forces of the Divine Nature—the forces of Light, Truth, divine Power, Peace, Ananda—there are the forces of the lower nature which belong either to a lower truth or to ignorance and error—there are also the hostile forces whose
Page-173 whole aim is to maintain the reign of Darkness, Falsehood, Death and Suffering as the law of life. The Mother : Attacks from adverse forces are inevitable: you have to take them as tests on your way and go courageously through the ordeal. The struggle may be hard, but when you come out of it, you have gained something, you have advanced a step. There is even a necessity for the existence of the hostile forces. They make your determination stronger, your aspiration clearer. If the attack takes the form of adverse suggestions try quietly to push them away, as you would some material object. The quieter you are, the stronger you become. The firm basis of all spiritual power is equanimity. You must not allow anything to disturb your poise : you can then resist every kind of attack. The only way to fail in your battle with the hostile forces is not to have a true confidence in the Divine help. Sincerity in the aspiration always brings down the required succour.
Most men are, like animals, driven by the forces of Nature: whatever desires come, they fulfil them, whatever
Page-174 emotions come they allow them to play, whatever physical wants they have, they try to satisfy. We say then that the activities and feelings of men are controlled by their Prakriti, and mostly by the vital and physical nature. The body is the instrument of the Prakriti or Nature— it obeys its own nature or it obeys the vital forces of desires, passion etc. But man has also a mind and, as he develops, he learns to control his vital and physical nature by his reason and by his will. This control is very partial : for the reason is often deluded by vital desires and the ignorance of the physical and it puts itself on their side and tries to justify by its ideas, reasonings or arguments their mistakes and wrong movements. Even if the reason keeps free and tells the vital or the body, "Do not do this", yet the vital and the body often follow their own movement in spite of the prohibition—man's mental will is not strong enough to compel them.
When people do sadhana, there is a higher Nature that works within, the psychic and spiritual, and they have to put their nature under the influence of the psychic being and the higher spiritual self or of the Divine. Not only the vital and the body but the mind also has to learn the Divine Truth and obey the divine rule. But because of the lower nature and its continued hold on them, they are unable at first and for a long time to prevent their nature from following the old ways—even when
Page-175 they know or are told from within what to do or what not to do. It is only by persistent sadhana, by getting into the higher spiritual consciousness and spiritual nature that this difficulty can be overcome; but even for the strongest and best sadhaks it takes a long time. The lower nature is ignorant and undivine, not in itself hostile but shut to the Light and Truth. The hostile forces are anti-divine, not merely undivine; they make use of the lower nature, pervert it, fill it with distorted movements and by that means influence man and even try to enter and possess or at least entirely control him. The rule in Yoga is not to let the depression depress you, to stand back from it, observe its cause and remove the cause. The Yogi should look on all the defects of the nature as movements of the lower prakriti common to all and reject them calmly, firmly and persistently with full confidence in the Divine Power. However hard the fight, the only thing is to fight it out now and here to the end.
The Mother does not make people commit mistakes; it is the Prakriti that makes them do it—if the Purusha does not refuse his consent. The Mother here is not this lower Prakriti, but the Divine Shakti and ft is her
Page-176 work to press on this lower Nature to change. You can say that under the pressure, the Prakriti stumbles and is unable to reply perfectly and makes mistakes. But it is not the Mother who makes you do wrong movements or does the wrong movements in you. Everything comes from the Divine; but the lower Prakriti is the power of the ignorance—it is not therefore a power of truth, but only of mixed truth and falsehood. The Mother here stands not for the Power of Ignorance, but for the Power that has come down to bring down the Truth and raise up to the Truth out of the Ignorance. . The Cosmic Force is a Power that works under the conditions of the Ignorance—it appears as the lower nature and the lower nature makes you do wrong things. The Divine allows the play of these forces so long as you do not yourself want anything better. But if you are a sadhak, then you do not accept the play of the lower nature, you turn to the Divine Mother instead, and ask her to work through you instead of the lower nature. It is only when you have turned entirely in every part of your being to the Divine Mother and to her alone that the Divine will do all actions through you.
The character is made up of habits and it clings to them, is disposed to think them the very law of its being and it is a hard job to get it to change at all except under a
Page-177 strong pressure of circumstances. Especially in the physical parts, the body, the physical mind, the physical life movements, there is this resistance; the tamasic element in Nature is powerful there, what the Gita describes as aprakasa, absence of light, and apravrtti, a tendency to inertia, inactivity, unwillingness to make an effort and, as a result, even when the effort is made, a constant readiness to doubt, to despond and despair, to give up, renounce the aim and the endeavour, collapse.
Physical consciousness wants the satisfaction of the ego, "self-fulfilment", appreciation, the granting of its desires. It measures the Divine Love by the outward favours showered upon it and looks jealously to see who gets more of these favours than itself, then says that the Divine has no love for it and assigns reasons which are either derogatory to the Divine, or self-depreciation and cause for despair. It is tamasic and does not want to change, does not want to believe unless it can be done by reassuring the vital ego; it is part of human nature and has always been there, hampering and limiting the sadhana. Its existence is no reason for despair—everyone has it and the sadhana has to be done in spite of it, in spite of the mixture it brings till the time comes when it has to be definitely rejected. It is difficult to do it, but perfectly possible.
Page-178 Human nature is shot through in all its stuff with the thread of the ego; even when one tries to get away from it, it is in front or could be behind all the thoughts and actions like a shadow. To see that is the first step, to discern the falsity and absurdity of the ego-movements is the second, to discourage and refuse it at each step is the third,—but it goes entirely only when one sees, experiences and lives the One in everything and equally everywhere. One must not treat the human nature like a machine to be handled according to rigid mental rules—a great plasticity is needed in dealing with its complex motives. The sadhana is done by the Mother according to the Truth and necessity of each nature and of each plane of Nature.
It was inevitable that in the course of the sadhana these inferior parts of the nature should be brought forward in order that like the rest of the being they may make the crucial choice and either accept or refuse transformation. My whole work depends upon this movement; it is the decisive ordeal of this Yoga. If the little external personality is to persist in retaining its obscure and limited, its petty and ignoble, its selfish and false and stupid human consciousness, this amounts to a flat negation of the work and the sadhana.
Page-179 I suppose if the Nirvana aim had been put before the disciples, more would have been fit for it, for the Nirvana aim is easier than the one we have put before us—and they would not have found it so difficult to reach the standard. The sadhaks here are of all kinds and in all stages. But the real difficulty even for those who have progressed is with the external man. Even among those who follow the old ideal, the external man of the sadhak remains almost the same even after they have attained to something. The inner being gets free, the outer follows still its fixed nature. Our Yoga can succeed only if the external man too changes, but that is the most difficult of all things. It is only by a change of the physical nature that it can be done, by a descent of the higher light into this lower part of Nature. It is here that the struggle is going on. The internal being of most of the sadhaks here, however imperfect still, is still different from that of the ordinary man, but the external still clings to its old ways, manners, habits. It is when this is realised and done, that the Yoga will produce its full results in the Ashram itself, and not before.
People with small and narrow minds are in love with their narrowness and attached to their own
limited ideas, feelings,^opinions, preferences and get disturbed, angry or full of doubt if anyone tries to make them think more widely.
Page-180 The Mother : Among human beings, the most widely spread disease is mental narrowness. They understand only what is in their own consciousness and cannot tolerate anything else. It is not possible to make a foundation in Yoga if the mind is restless. The first thing needed is quiet in the mind. Also to merge the personal consciousness is not the first aim of the Yoga; the first aim is to open it to a higher spiritual consciousness and for this also a quiet mind is the first need. People do not understand what I write because the mind by itself cannot understand things that are beyond it. People often catch hold of something written by me or said by the Mother, give it an interpretation quite other than or far beyond its true meaning and deduce from it a suddenly extreme and logical conclusion which is quite contrary to our knowledge and experience.
In this Yoga one is supposed to go beyond every mental idealistic culture. Ideas
and Ideals belong to the mind and are half-truths only; the mind too is, more
often than not, satisfied with merely having an ideal, with the pleasure of
idealising, while life remains always the same, untransformed
Page-181 or changed only a little and mostly in appearance. The spiritual seeker does not turn aside from the pursuit of realisation to mere idealising; not to idealise, but to realise the Divine Truth is always his aim, either beyond or in life also—and in the latter case it is necessary to transform mind and life which cannot be done without surrender to the action of the Divine Force, the Mother. The Divine Consciousness acts from a light that is beyond that level of human consciousness which makes the human standard of these things. It acts for and from a greater good than the apparent good men follow after. It acts also according to a greater truth than men conceive. It is for this reason that the human mind cannot understand the divine action and its motives—he must first rise into a higher consciousness and be in spiritual contact or union with the Divine.
The mind acts according to hard and fast rules and standards, while the spirit sees the truth of all and the truth of each and acts variously according to its own comprehensive and complex vision. That is why we say that no one can understand by his personal mental judgment the Mother's actions and reasons for action : it can only be understood by entering into the larger consciousness from which she sees things and acts upon
Page-182 them. That is baffling to the mind because it uses its small measures, but that is the truth of the matter. The weak-willed man is governed by his vital and physical impulsions, his mental being is not dynamic enough to make its will prevail over them. His will is not "free" because it is not strong enough to be free, it is the slave of the forces that act on or in his vital and physical nature. Thoughts, ideas, etc. are always wandering about, seeking a mind that may embody them. One mind takes, looks, rejects—another takes, looks, accepts. Two different minds catch the same thought-form or thought-wave, but the mental activities being different, make different results out of them, and the recipient cries proudly, "I, I have done this". Ego, Sir! ego! You are the recipient, the conditioning medium, if you like— but nothing more.
Nothing is more dangerous than the influences of the physical mind trying to build up conclusions upon outward appearances—they have nine chances out of ten of being false. One must learn to distrust hasty conclusions from surface appearances and learn to see and know things from within.
Page-183 In ordinary life people always judge wrongly because they judge by mental standards and generally by conventional standards. The human mind is an instrument not of truth but of ignorance and error. The insistence of the ordinary mind and its wrong reasonings, sentiments and judgments, the random activity of the thinking mind in concentration or its mechanical activity, the slowness of response to the veiled or the initial touch are the ordinary obstacles the mind imposes, just as pride, ambition, vanity, sex, greed, grasping of things for one's own ego are the difficulties and obstacles offered by the vital. As the vital difficulties can be fought down and conquered, so can the mental. Only one has to see that these are the inevitable obstacles and neither cling to them nor be terrified or overwhelmed because they are there. One has to persevere till one can stand back from the mind as from the vital.
A thousand questions can be asked about anything whatsoever, but to answer would require a volume, and even then the mind would understand nothing. It is only by a growth in the consciousness itself that you can get some direct perception of these things. But for that the mind must be quiet and a direct feeling and intuition take its place.
Page-184 That .trouble is from the physical mind refusing to take the trouble of the labour and struggle necessary for the spiritual achievement. It wants to get the highest, but desires a smooth course all the way, "who the devil is going to face so much trouble for getting the Divine ?" —that is the underlying feeling. It is only when one has cleared the field and ploughed and sown and watched over it that big harvests can be hoped for. All things are the Divine because the Divine is there, but hidden not manifest; when the mind goes out to things, it is not with the sense of the Divine in them, but for the appearances only which conceal the Divine. It is necessary therefore for you as a sadhak to turn entirely to the Mother in whom the Divine is manifest and not run after the appearances, the desire of which or the interest in which prevents you from meeting the Divine. Once the being is consecrated, then it can see the Divine everywhere—and then it can include all things in the one consciousness without a separate interest or desire. To be rid of the external mind and its doubts one must cease to be attached to or accept its ideas in the feelings of the vital. One must realise that those things are ignorance, not knowledge, and that there is a true consciousness and true knowledge which can come only Page-185 by quietude of the mind and vital and one must aspire to that. The thinking mind has to learn how to be entirely silent. It is only then that true knowledge can come. The Mother : The mind is not an instrument for knowledge. Its true role is to give a form, to initiate an action. It is mind that puts in order the different elements of the inspiration and organises the action.... Knowledge does not come from the mind. It comes from the profundities of the soul or from a higher consciousness. Man's role is to concentrate this knowledge in the physical world and organise it in order to give action a rational basis.... Mind has a powerful control over all vital impulses. Because of it, all that comes from the vital world can be used for a disciplined and organised action. But for that, it must be at the service of some other thing, of a higher ideal, or of a divine consciousness and must not remain satisfied with itself. These are the two roles of the mind. It is a force, an instrument for control. And when it is sufficiently developed it becomes a very powerful and capable instrument for organisation and for formation. Page-186 Relations after taking up Yoga should be less and less based on a physical origin or the habits of the physical consciousness and more and more on the basis of sadhana. Family ties create an unnecessary interchange and come in the way of a complete turning to the Divine. Child-parent relation is a law of the human society, not a law of Karma. The child did not ask the father to bring him into the world—and if the father has done it for his own pleasure, it is the least he can do to bring up the child. All these are social relations, but whatever they are, they cease once one takes to the spiritual life. It is the Divine alone with whom one has to do. The Mother :
One who has given himself to the Divine has no longer any other duty than to make that consecration more and more perfect. The world and those who live in it have always wanted to put human—social and family—duty before duty to the Divine, which they have stigmatised as egoism. How indeed could they judge otherwise, they who have no experience of the reality of the Divine ? But for the Divine regard their opinion has no value, their will has no force. These are movements of ignorance, nothing more. You should not attempt to convince ; above all, you should not let yourself be touched
Page-187 or shaken. You must shut yourself carefully within your ivory tower of consecration and attend from the Divine alone help, protection, guidance and approbation. To be condemned by the whole world is nothing to him who knows that he has the approval of the Divine and his support. All that is based on human relationship is unstable and transient, mixed and unsatisfactory; it is only what is established in the Divine and through the Divine that can last and give satisfaction. The sadhaka has to turn away entirely from the invasion of the vital and the physical by the sex-impulse —for, if he does not conquer the sex-impulse there can be no settling in the body of the divine consciousness and the divine Ananda. This Yoga demands a full ascension of the whole lower or ordinary consciousness to join the spiritual above it and a full descent of the spiritual into the mind, life and body to transform it. The total ascent is impossible so long as sex-desire blocks the way ; the descent is dangerous so long as sex-desire is powerful in the vital. One must, therefore, clear this obstacle out of the way; otherwise there is either no safety or no free movement towards finality in the sadhana. Page-188 To eliminate it one must first be careful to harbour no sexual imagination or feeling in the waking state, next, to put a strong will on the body and especially on the sexual centre that there should be nothing of the kind in sleep. Inactivity is an atmosphere in which sex easily rises. There are a number of women who can love with the mind, the psychic, the vital (heart), but they shrink from a touch on the body and even when that goes, the physical act remains abhorrent to them. They may yield under pressure, but it does not reconcile them to the act which always seems to them animal and degrading. Women know this, but men seem to find it hard to believe; but i, is perfectly true. The one serious matter is the sex-tendency. That must be overcome. But it will be more easily overcome if instead of being upset by its presence you detach the inner being from it, rise up above it and view it as a. weakness of the lower nature.
In a general way the only method of succeeding in having between a man and a woman the free and natural yogic relations that should exist between a sadhak and a
Page-189 sadhika in this Yoga is to be able to meet each other without thinking at all that one is a man and another a woman —both are simply human beings, both sadhaks, both striving to serve the Divine and seeking the Divine alone and none else. Have that fully in yourself and no difficulty is likely to come. All gross animal indulgence of sex desire and impulse would have to be eliminated; it could only continue among those who are not ready for the higher life or not yet ready for a complete spiritual living. It is true that the sex centre and its reactions can be transformed arid that ah Ananda from above can come down to replace the animal sex reaction. The sex impulse is a degradation of this Ananda. Remember the following rules with regard to speech : (1)Not to allow the impulse of speech to assert itself too much or say anything without reflection, but to speak always with a conscious control and only what is necessary and helpful.
(2)To avoid all debates, dispute or too animated discussion and simply say what has to be said and leave it there. There should also be no insistence that you are .right and the others wrong, but what is said should
Page-190 only be thrown in as a contribution to the consideration of the truth of the matter. (3)To keep the tone of speech and the wording very quiet and calm and un insistent. (4)Not to mind at all if others are heated and dispute, but remain quiet and undisturbed and yourself speak only what can help things to be smooth again. (5)If there is gossip about others and harsh criticism (specially about sadhaks), not to join—for these things are helpful in no way and only lower the consciousness from its higher level. (6)To avoid all that would hurt or wound others. A gossiping spirit is always an obstacle. Speech is usually the expression of the superficial nature; therefore to throw oneself out too much in such speech wastes the energy and prevents the inward listening which brings the word of true knowledge. "Talk less and gain power" has essentially the same meaning; not only a truer knowledge, but a greater power comes to one in the quietude and silence of the mind.
The Mother's warning to you against the undesirability of too much talk, loose chat and gossip, social self-dispersion was entirely meant and stands; when you indulge in these things, you throw yourself out into a
Page-191 very small and ignorant consciousness in which your vital defects get free play and this is likely to bring you out of what you have developed in your inner consciousness. The best way to get mastery over speech and action is to learn to stand back from the outer mind and vital and achieve an inner silence from which one can act on the outer self. If one puts oneself in the true relation with the Mother he will always get help as much as he can receive or use. Dissimulation and falsity of speech is an exceedingly injurious habit of the lower nature. Those who are not straightforward cannot profit by the Mother's help, for they themselves turn it away. Unless they change, they cannot hope for the descent of the supramental Light and Truth into the lower vital and physical nature j they remain stuck in their own self-created mud and cannot progress. Control of speech is very necessary for the physical change. To minimise speech is sure to be helpful both for right action and for inner sadhana.
Speech breaks out as the expression of the vital and its habits, without caring to wait for the control of the
Page-192 mind; the tongue has been spoken of as the unruly member. It is better to be more strict about not talking of others and criticising them with the ordinary mind. It is necessary in order to develop a deeper consciousness and outlook on things that understands in silence the movements of Nature in oneself and others and is not moved or disturbed or superficially interested and drawn into an external movement. The sadhaks of this Ashram are not perfect—they have plenty of weaknesses and wrong movements. It is blindness not to be able to see that; only it should not lead to a criticising or condemnatory attitude towards persons—and it should be regarded as the play of forces which have to be overcome. Yes, excessive hilarity and unnecessary chat do most undoubtedly dissipate the force. A great moderation is necessary in these things. The Mother :
Be careful always to keep the living Presence and Protection around you when you speak to people, and speak as little as possible.
Page-193 It is the control over oneself that is the first thing needed, and especially the control over one's tongue. If people could learn to keep silent how many troubles would be avoided ! It is a much greater and more fruitful austerity to control one's speech than to abolish it altogether. The world is deafened with the noise of his speech and at times you almost seem to miss the harmonious silence of the vegetable kingdom. It is a well-known fact that the less the mental power the greater is the need for speech. The point of view of mental austerity does not fall outside the category of talkativeness. For by talkativeness I mean uttering any word that is not absolutely indispensable. If you are not alone and you live with others, cultivate the habit not to throw yourself out constantly into spoken words, you will see little by little that an inner understanding has been established between you and the others ; you will then be able to communicate with each other with the minimum speech or no speech at all. This outer silence is very favourable to inner peace and if you have good will and constant aspiration you will be able to create an atmosphere conducive to progress.
You should always control the words you utter and must not let your tongue be moved by an outburst of
Page-194 anger, violence or temper. It is not merely the quarrel itself which is bad in its results ; it is the fact that you lend your tongue for the projection of bad vibrations into the atmosphere, for nothing is more contagious than the vibration of sound. Among the most undesirable kinds of talkativeness should be included all that one says about others. In any case and in a general way, the less one speaks of others,—even if it be in praise of them—the better it is. Already it is so difficult to know exactly what happens in oneself, how to know then with certainty what is happening in others. Refrain then from pronouncing upon any person one of those irrevocable judgments which can only be stupidity, if not malice. Besides, in the matter of inner life and spiritual effort, the use of speech should be put under a still more stringent rule : nothing should be spoken unless it is absolutely necessary to do so. A weak vital has not the strength to turn spiritually —and being weak, more easily falls under a wrong influence and even when it wants finds it difficult" to accept anything beyond its own habitual nature. The strong vital, when the will is there, can do it much more easily.
But this must always be remembered that the vital being and the life-force in man are separated from the
Page-195 Divine Light and, so separated, they are an instrument for any power that can take hold of them, illumined or obscure, divine or undivine. It is therefore only when this vital is transformed and made a pure and strong instrument of the Divine Shakti, that there can be a divine life. It must be put in contact with the higher consciousness, it must be surrendered to the true control, it must be placed under the government of the Divine. The vital must not only reject all lower movements, but open and receive the light from above so that it may receive and know the Divine Will and its impulsion —it can then be called enlightened. The lower vital takes a mean and petty pleasure in picking out the faults of others and thereby one hampers one's own progress and that of the subject of the criticism. But the vital's test is very foolish. If the sadhana goes on whether you see the Mother or not, that would rather show that the psychic connection is permanently there and active always and does not depend on the physical contact. The vital seems to think the sadhana ought to cease if you would not see the Mother but that would only mean that the love and devotion need the stimulus of physical contact. The greatest test of love and devotion is on the contrary when it burns as strongly in long absence as in the presence. If your sadhana went on as well on non-pranam as on Pranam days it would not Page-196 prove that love and devotion are not there, but that they are so strong as to be self-existent in all circumstances. There are ranges of consciousness above and below the human range, with which the normal human ha no contact and they seem to it unconscious. The vital in its outer form in the ignorance generates the desire-soul which governs most men and which they mistake often for the real soul. The vital as the desire-soul and desire-nature controls the consciousness to a large extent in most men, because men are governed by desire. It is the mental, vital, physical ego that we take for our being until we get knowledge. Our experience is that too much vital eagerness, too much insistence often blocks the way, it makes a sort of obstructing mass or a whirl of restlessness and disturbance which leaves no quiet space for the Divine to get in. The habit of this vital element starts up and takes hold and interrupts the progress made.
When the vital takes the lead, then unrest, despondency, unhappiness can always come, since these things are the very nature of the vital—the vital can never remain
Page-197 constantly in joy and peace, for it needs their opposites in order to have the sense of the drama of life. If the psychic were always there in front, the desert would be no longer a desert and the wilderness would blossom with the rose. There are three obstacles that one has to overcome in the vital and they are very difficult to overcome, lust (sexual desire), wrath and rajasic ego. These vital forces are around everywhere, and if one opens the door to them, they come in wherever you are. One who wants to do sadhana has no business to indulge in such panics; it is a weakness incompatible with the demands of the Yoga and, if one cannot throw it aside, it is safer not to try the Yoga. Each victory gained over oneself means new strength to gain more victories. When some weakness comes up you should take it as an opportunity to know what is still to be done and call down the strength into that part.
One cannot take advantage of any help given him because his vital nature cherishes its weakness and is always indulging and rhetorically expressing it instead of throwing it away with contempt as a thing unworthy of manhood and unfit for a sadhak. It is only if he so
Page-198 rejects it that he can receive strength and stand in life or progress in the sadhana. This is a temperament which the gods will not help because they know that help is useless, for it will either not be received or will be spilled and wasted. It is this idea that you are helpless because the vital consents to the wrong movement that comes in the way. You have to put your inner will and the Mother's light on the vital so that it shall change, not leave it to do what it likes. The Mother's force can act, but on condition that the assent of the being is there. The human vital is almost always of that nature; it is by the use of the mental will that they discipline it, compelling it to do not what it wants but what the reason or the will sees to, be right or desirable. In Yoga one uses the inner will and compels the vital to submit itself to tapasya so that it may become calm, strong, obedient. The vital is a good instrument but a bad master. If you allow it to follow its likes and dislikes, its fancies, its desires, its bad habits, it becomes your master and peace and happiness are no longer possible.
Put the Mother's notice henceforth at the door of your vital being, "No falsehood hereafter shall ever enter
Page-199 here", and station a sentry there to see that it is put into execution. The lower vital has its place, it is not to be crushed or killed, but it has to be changed, "caught hold of by both ends", at the upper end a mastery and control, at the lower end a right use. The main thing is to get rid of attachment and desire; it is then that an entirely right use becomes possible. It is better to be a stone on the road to the Divine than soft and weak clay in the muddy paths of the ordinary vital human nature. The vital is too selfish to have any gratitude. The more it gets the more it demands and it takes everything as its right and every denial of what it wants as an injustice and an offence.
The unregenerate vital in the average human nature is not grateful for a benefit, it resents being under an obligation. So long as the benefit continues, it is effusive and says sweet things, as soon as it expects nothing more it turns round and bites the hands that fed it. Sometimes it does that even before, when it thinks it can do it without the benefactor knowing the origin of the slander, faultfinding or abuse. In all these dealings, of course, people with a developed psychic element are by nature grateful and do not behave in this way.
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