Chapter 2
Living in the Ashram
LIVING IN THE ASHRAM AND OUTSIDE
By coming to the Ashram difficulties do not cease-they have to be faced and overcome wherever you are. For certain natures residence in the Ashram from the beginning is helpful-others have to prepare themselves outside.
SRI AUROBINDO
Do not judge on appearances and do
not listen to what people say, because these two things are
misleading. But if you find it necessary to go, of course you can go
and from an external point of view it may be indeed wiser.
Moreover it is not easy to remain here. There is in the Ashram no exterior discipline and no Visible test. But the inner test is severe and constant, one must be very sincere in the aspiration to surmount all egoism and to conquer all vanity in order to be able to stay.
A complete surrender is not outwardly exacted but it is indispensable for those who wish to stick on, and many things come to test the sincerity of the surrender. However the Grace and the help are always there for those who aspire for them and their power is limitless when received with faith and cofidence.
20 November 1948
THE MOTHER
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The path is not an easy one.
To remain here is possible only for those who feel deep in themselves that here is the only place in the world Where they must live.
This may - (must) - come to you - but meanwhile it is better to go back to the world and see what it has to give you.
I will be with you always in your aspiration towards a more true future.
3 July 1968
THE MOTHER
THE FIRST CONDITION OF ADMISSION
It is not from disgust for life and people that one must come to yoga.
It is not to run away from difficulties that one must come here.
It is not even to find the sweetness of love and protection, for the Divine's love and protection can be enjoyed everywhere if one takes the right attitude.
When one wants to give oneself totally in service to the Divine, to consecrate oneself totally to the Divine's work, simply for the joy of giving oneself and of serving, without asking for anything in exchange, except the possibility of consecration and service, then one is ready to come here and will find the doors wide open.
I give you the blessings given to all my children wherever they are in the world and tell you, "Prepare yourself, my help will always be with you."
THE MOTHER
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You say that you wish to lead the spiritual life, but for that you should understand that the first point is to overcome all the lower movements, all the attractions, all the attachments, for all these are absolutely contrary to the spiritual life.
The spiritual life demands that one is exclusively turned towards the Divine and the Divine alone. All that one does should be done for the Divine; all occupations, all aspirations, all, without exception, should be directed towards the Divine with a complete surrender of the whole being.
I
know that this cannot be done in a day. But the decision that it may
be so should be taken in an unshakable manner.
It is only on this
condition that I can accept you for the spiritual life.
THE MOTHER
*
First indispensable condition
to be admitted in the Ashram
The candidate must have taken the resolution to dedicate his life unconditionally to the service of the Divine.
THE MOTHER
*
The Ashram is meant for those who want to consecrate their lives to the Divine.
June 1971
THE MOTHER
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QUALITIES INDISPENSABLE FOR PROGRESS
What should the Ashramites, if they truly wish to transform
themselves totally, do in order to make things easy
for themselves, for others and for the Mother as well?
By definition, the Ashramite has resolved to dedicate his life to the Divine Realisation. But to be true to his resolution he must be sincere, faithful, modest and grateful in his consecration, because these qualities are indispensable for all progress, and progress, a steady and rapid progress, is indispensable to follow the pace of Nature's evolutionary advance.
Without these qualities, one may have sometimes the appearance of progress but it is only an appearance, a pretence, and at the first occasion it crumbles down.
To be sincere, all the parts of the being must be united in their aspiration for the Divine - not that one part wants and the others refuse or revolt. To be sincere in the aspiration, -to want the Divine for the Divine's sake, not for fame or name or prestige or power or any satisfaction of vanity.
To be faithful and steady in their consecration,-not to have faith
one day and the next one, because things are not as they wish them to
be, to lose their faith and shelter all sorts of doubts. Doubt is not
a sport to indulge in with impunity; it is a poison which drop by
drop corrodes the soul.
To be modest means to have correct appreciation of what one is, and never to forget that whatever are one's achievements, they are practically nothing in comparison with what one ought to be to fulfil the Lord's expectation.
And above all to feel in an absolute way one's own incapacity to judge the Divine and His ways.
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To be grateful, never to forget this wonderful Grace of the Supreme who leads each one to his divine goal by the shortest ways, in spite of himself, his ignorance and misunderstandings, in spite of the ego, its protests and its revolts.
THE MOTHER
*
What qualities are necessary for one to be called "a true
child of the Ashram " ?
Sincerity, courage, discipline, endurance, absolute faith in the Divine work and unassailable trust in the Divine Grace. All this must be accompanied by a sustained, ardent and persevering aspiration, and by a limitless patience.
THE MOTHER
THE NECESSITIES OF A SADHAK
The necessities of a sadhak should be as few as possible; for there are only a very few things that are real necessities in life. The rest are either utilities or things decorative to life or luxuries. These a yogin has a right to possess or enjoy only on one of two conditions -
(1) If he uses them during his sadhana solely to train himself in possessing things without attachment or desire and
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learn to use them rightly, in harmony with the Divine Will, with a proper handling, a just organisation, arrangement and measure - or,
(2) if he has already attained a true freedom from desire and attachment and is not in the least moved or affected in any way by loss or withholding or deprival. If he has any greed, desire, demand, claim for possession or enjoyment, any anxiety, grief, anger or vexation when denied or deprived, he is not free in spirit and his use of the things he possesses is contrary to the spirit of sadhana. Even if he is free in spirit, he will not be fit for possession if he has not learned to use things not for himself, but for the Divine Will, as an instrument, with the right knowledge and action in the use, for the proper equipment of a life lived not for oneself but for and in the Divine.
8 March 1932
SRI AUROBINDO
*
It is quite true that, so long at least as the Sadhaks are not Siddha Yogis, self-control is the law; they have to learn to refrain from indulgence of excess in any direction -the provision made for them being ample for a Sadhak and much more than is allowed elsewhere- and from negligence, greed or the pursuit of individual fancy.
SRI AUROBINDO
*
The Mother does not provide the Sadhaks with comforts because she thinks that the desires, fancies, likings, preferences should be satisfied-in Yoga people have to overcome these things. In any other Ashram they would not get one tenth of 'what they get here, they would have to put up
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with all possible discomforts, privations, hard and rigorous austerities, and if they complained, they would be told they were not fit for Yoga. If there is a different rule here, it is not because the desires have to be indulged, but because they have to be overcome in the presence of the objects of desire and not in their absence. The first rule of Yoga is that the Sadhak must be content with what comes to him, much or little; if things are there, he must be able to use them without attachment or desire; if they are not he must be indifferent to their absence.
7 January 1937
SRI AUROBINDO
COMFORT AND HAPPINESS
The reason for people to come and settle here is surely not to find comfort and luxury -this can be found anywhere if one is lucky enough. But what one can get here, that is not got in any other place: it is the Divine Love, Grace and-Care. It is when this is forgotten or disregarded that people begin to feel miserable here. Indeed whenever somebody feels unhappy and discontented, it can be taken as a sure sign that he is turning his back on what the Divine is always giving and that he has gone astray in pursuit of worldly satisfaction.
13 January 1947
THE MOTHER
*
If you want to be happy here, you must come with the will to do the yoga of self-perfection; for if you do not come for that, you will be shocked at every moment by things that are contrary to your habits and to the principles of ordinary life, and it will not be possible for you to stay here, because
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these things are necessary for the work and organisation here and cannot be changed.
THE MOTHER
*
People who feel miserable here and find that they have not the comfort they require ought not to stay. We are not in a position to do more than we do, and after all our aim is not to give to people a comfortable life, but to prepare them for a Divine Life which is quite a different affair.
1964
THE MOTHER
Sri Aurobindo said that the physical was to be taken into the yoga and not rejected or neglected. And almost all here thought they were doing yoga in the physical and fell a prey to physical "needs" and desire.
To speak frankly, I like better that mistake than that of the so-called ascetics who are full of contempt, bad will and scornful feeling for others.
No time to say all that could be said on the subject.
THE MOTHER
*
We are not here to make our life easy and comfortable; we are here to find the Divine, to become the Divine, to manifest the Divine.
What happens to us is the Divine's business, it is not our concern.
The Divine knows better than we do what is good for the progress of the world and of ourselves.
THE MOTHER
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