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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  IX         EXPERIENCES AND VISIONS         Q: What is the difference between concentration and meditation in our Yoga?       A: Concentration, for our Yoga, means when the consciousness is fixed in a particular state (e.g., peace) or movement (e.g., aspiration, will, coming into contact with the Mother, taking the Mother's name); meditation is when the inner mind is looking at things to get the right knowledge.         Q: You wrote that "the Mother is always in concentrated consciousness in her inner being". What is meant by "concentrated consciousness" ?       A: The higher consciousness is a concentrated consciousness, concentrated in the Divine U

     IV         SINCERITY         Q: Is it true that it is only through the power of absolute sincerity that one can get full transformation and reach the Supramental Truth?       A: Yes.         The Mother has said: "If you are not sincere do not begin Toga." Does this imply that if after entering Toga a person finds that his sincerity is not complete, he should leave it?       A: No. It is only if he is fundamentally insincere that he should leave it.         Q: How can a sadhak know whether he is fundamentally insincere?       A: If he sees that he is full of ego and doing sadhana for the sake of the ego only and has no real turn

    X        WORK       Q: When people join the Ashram to do sadhana and live under the Mother's protection, is it not necessary for them to do some Ashram work to progress in their sadhana?       A: They should do.         Q: Should they ask the Mother for work or wait till she herself gives them work ?       A: If they have the true spirit in them, they will ask for work.         Q: Sometimes when a sadhak asks the Mother's permission to do a work of his choice and the Mother gives it, can it be said that it is the work done for the Mother?       A: The sadhak ought to be ready to do any work that is needed, not only the work he prefers.