3. THE PATH OF SPIRITUAL LIFE
(I)
There are two great forces in the universe, silence and speech. Silence prepares, speech creates. Silence acts, speech gives the impulse to action. Silence compels, speech persuades. The immense and inscrutable processes of the world all perfect themselves with in, in a deep and august silence, covered , by a noisy and misleading surface of sound—the stir of innumerable waves above, the fathomless resistless mass of the ocean's waters below. Men see the waves, they hear the rumour and the thousand voices and by these they judge the course of the future and the Heart of God's intention; but in nine cases out of ten they misjudge. Therefore it is said that in history it is always the unexpected that happens. But it would not be the unexpected if men could turn their eyes &om super6cies and look into substance, if they accus
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tomed themselves to put aside appearances and penetrate beyond them and the noise of life and listened rather to its silence.
(2)
WHAT IS YOGA?
Yoga is communion with God for knowledge, for love or for work. The yogin puts himself into direct relation with that which is omniscient and omnipotent within man and without him He is in tune with the infinite, he becomes a channel for the strength of God to pour itself out upon the world whether through calm benevolence or active beneficence When a man rises by putting from h the slough of self and lives for others and in the joys and sorrows of others;—when he works perfectly and with love and zeal, but casts away the anxiety for results and is neither eager for victory nor afraid of defeat;—when he devotes all his, works to God and lays every thought, word and deed as an offering on the divine altar;—when he gets rid of fear and hatred, repulsion on and disgust and attachment works like the forces of Nature, unhasting, unresting, inevitably, perfectly;—when he rises above the thought that he is the body or the heart or the mind or the sum of these and finds his own and true self;—when he becomes aware of his immortality and the unreality of death;—when he experiences the advent of knowledge and feels himself passive and the Divine Force working unresisted through his mind, his speech, his senses and all his organs;—when having thus abandoned whatever he is, does or has, to the Lord of all, the Lover and Helper of mankind, he dwells permanently
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in Him and becomes incapable of grief, disquiet or false excitement,—that is Yoga.
(3)
THE PRACTICE OF INTEGRAL YOGA
The first step is a quiet mind—silence is a further step, but quietude must be there; and by a quiet mind I mean a mental consciousness within which sees thoughts arrive to it and move about but does not itself feel that it is thinking or identifying itself with the thoughts or call them its own. Thoughts, mentel movement may pass through it as wayfarers appear and pass from elsewhere through a silent country—the quiet mind observes them or does not care to observe them, but, in either case, does not become active or lose its quietude.
(4)
Remain quiet, open yourself and call the Divine sakti to confirm the calm and peace, to widen the consciousness and to bring into it as much light and power as it can at present receive and assimilate.
Take care not to be over-eager, as this may disturb again such quiet and balance as has been already established in the vital nature.
Have confidence in the final result and give time for the power to do its work.
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(5)
Aspire aways for the mind and psychic being to be filled with the true consciousness and experience and made ready. You must aspire especially for quietness, peace, a calm faith, an increasing steady wideness, for more and more knowledge, for a deep and intense but quiet devotion.
Do not be troubled by your surroundings and their opposition. 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 sadhak must develop a quiet, firm and solid strength to meet them.
(6)
Faith, reliance upon God, surrender and self-giving to the Divine Power are necessary and indispensable. But reliance upon God must not be made an excuse for indolence, weakness and surrender to the impulses of the lower Nature: it must go along with untiring aspiration and a persistent rejection of all that comes in the way of the Divine Truth. The surrender to the Divine must not be turned into an excuse, a cloak or an occasion for surrender to one's own desires and lower movements or to one's ego or to some force of the Ignorance and darkness that puts on a false appearance of the Divine.
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(7)
To do anything by mental control is always dificult, when what is attempted runs contrary to the trend of human nature or of the personal nature. A strong will patiently and perseveringly turned towards its object can effect a change, but usually it takes a long time and the success at the beginning may be only partial and chequered by many failures.
To turn all actions automatically into worship cannot be done by thought control only; there must be a strong aspiration in the heart which will bring about some realisation or feeling of the presence of the One to whom worship is offered. The bhakta does not rely on his own effort alone, but on the Grace and Power of the Divine whom be adores.
(8)
All sincere aspiration has its effect; if you are sincere you will grow into the divine life.
To be entirely sincere means to desire the divine Truth only, to surrender yourself more and: more to the Divine Mother, to reject all personal demand and desire other than this one aspiration, to offer every action in life to the Divine and to do it as the work given without bringing in the ego. This is the basis of the divine life.
One cannot become altogether this at once, but if one aspires at all times and calls in always the aid of the Divine sakti with a true heart and straightforward will, one grows more and more into this consciousness.
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(9)
Desire takes a long time to get rid of entirely. But, if you can once get it out of the nature and realise it as a force coming from outside and putting its claws into the vital and physical, it will be easier to get rid of the invader. You are too accustomed to feel it as part of yourself or planted in you—that makes it more dif6cult for you to deal with its movements and dismiss its ancient control over you.
(10)
Reject it entirely, not by struggling with it, but by drawing back from it, detaching yourself and refusing your consent; look at it as something not your own, but imposed on you by a force of Nature outside you. Refuse all consent to the imposition. If anything in your vital consents, insist on that part of you withdrawing its consent. Call in the Divine Force to help you in your withdrawal and refusal. If you can do this quietly and resolutely and patiently, in the end your inner will will prevail against the habit of the outer Nature.
(11)
In this Yoga all depends on whether one can open to the Influence or not. If there is a sincerity in the aspiration and a patient will to arrive at the higher consciousness in spite
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of all obstacles, then the opening in one form or another is sure to come. But it may take a long or short time according. to the prepared or unprepared condition of the mind, heart and body; so if one has not the necessary patience, the effort may be abandoned owing to the difficulty of the beginning. There is no method in this Yoga except to concentrate, preferably in the heart, and call the Presence and Power of the Mother to take up the being and by the workings of her Force transform the consciousness; one can concentrate also in the head or between the eyebrows, but for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is a beginning of experience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be. For the rest one must not depend on one's own efforts only, but succeed, in establishing a contact with the Divine and a receptivity to the Mother's Power and Presence.
(12)
The way of Yoga followed here has a di6erent purpose from others,—for its aim is not only to rise out of the ordinary ignorant world-consciousness into the divine consciousness, but to bring the supramental power of that divine consciousness down into the ignorance of mind, life and body, to transform them, to manifest the Divine here and create a divine here in Matter. This is an exceedingly difficult aim and difficult Yoga; to many or most it will seem impossible.. All the established forces of the ordinary ignorant world-consciousness are opposed to it and deny it and try to prevent it, and
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the sadhak will find his own mind, life and body full of the most obstinate impediments to its realisation If you can accept the ideal whole-heartedly, face all difficulties leave the past and its ties behind you and are ready to give up everything and risk everything for this divine possibility, then only can you hope to discover by experience the Truth behind it.
The sadhuna of this Yoga does not proceed through any set mental teaching or prescribed forms of meditation, mantrus or others, but by aspiration, by a self concentration inwards or upwards, by self-opening to an Influence, to the Divine Power above us and its workings, to the Divine Presence in the heart and by the rejection of all that is foreign .. to these things. It is only by faith, aspiration and surrender that this self-opening can come.
(I3)
The being of man is composed of these elements—the psychic behind supporting all, the inner mental, vital and physical and the outer, quite external nature of mind, life and body which is their instrument of expression. But above all is the central being (jivatma) which uses them all for its manifestation: it is a portion of the Divine Self; but this reality of himself is hidden from the external man who replaces this inmost self and soul of him by the mental and vital. ego It is only those who have begun to know themselves that become aware of their true central being; but still it is. always there standing behind the action of mind, life and body and is most directly represented by the psychic which:
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is itself a spark of the Divine. It is by the growth of the psychic element in one's nature that one begins to come into conscious touch with one's central being above. When that happens and the central being uses a conscious will to control and organisms the movements of the nature, it is then that one has a real, a spiritual as opposed to a partial and merely mental or moral self-mastery.
The phrase "central being—in our Yoga is usually applied to the portion of the Divine in us which supports all the rest and survives through death and birth. This central being has two forms—Above, it is Jivatma, our true being, of which we become aware when the higher self-knowledge comes,—below, it is the psychic being which stands behind mind, body and life. "1he jivatma is above the manifestation in life and presides over it; the psychic being stands behind the manifestation in life and supports it.
(I5)
To go entirely inside in order to have experiences and to neglect the work, the external consciousness, is to be unbalanced, onesided in the sadhana—for our Yoga is integral; so also to throw oneself outward and live in the external being alone is to be unbalanced, one-sided in the sadhana. One
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must have the same consciousness in inner experience and outward action and make both full of the Mother.
To keep up work helps to keep up the balance between ye internal experience and the external development; otherwise one-sidedness and want of measure and balance may develop. Moreover, it is necessary to keep the sadhana of work for the Divine because in the end that enables the sadhak to bring out the inner progress into the external nature and help and helps the integrate of the sadhana.
(17)
Works are only thus outward and distracting when we have not found oneness of will and consciousness with the supreme. When once that is found, works become the very power of knowledge and the very outpouring of love. If knowledge is the very state of oneness and the love its bliss, divine works are the living power of its light and sweetness. There is a movement of love, as in the aspiration of human love, to separate the lover and the loved in the enjoyment of their exclusive oneness away from world and from all others, hut up in the nuptial chambers of the heart....But still the widest love fulfilled in knowledge sees the world not as something other and hostile to this joy, but as the being of the
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Beloved and all creatures as his being, and in that vision divine works find their joy and their justification.
(18)
Our synthesis takes man as a spirit in mind much more than a spirit in body and assumes in him the capacity to begin on that level, to spiritualise his being by the power of the soul in mind opening itself directly to a higher spiritual force and being and to perfect by that higher force so possessed, and brought into action the whole of his nature.
(19)
THE ESSENCE OF YOGA
To bring the Divine Love and Beauty and Ananda into the world is, indeed, the whole crown and essence of our Yoga. But it has always seemed to me impossible unless there comes as its support and foundation and guard the Divine Truth—what I call the Supramental—and its Divine Power. Otherwise Love itself blinded by the confusions of this present consciousness may stumble in its human receptacles and, even otherwise, may find itself unrecognized, rejected or rapidly degenerating and lost in the frailty of man's inferior nature—But when it comes in the divine truth and power, Divine Love descends first as something transcendent and universal and out of that transcendence and universality it applies
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itself to persons according to the Divine Truth and will creating a vaster, greater, purer personal love than any the human mind or heart can now imagine. It is when one has felt this descent that one can be really an instrument for the birth and action of the Divine love in the world.
(20)
The Divine gives itself to those who give themselves without reserve and in all their parts to the Divine. For them the calm, the light, the power, the bliss, the freedom, the wideness, the heights of knowledge, the seas of ananda.