Will and Desire What is the difference between Desire or Wish and Will? They are not the same thing. When, for example, you see that a thing is to be done and that it is good to do it, then normally your reason decides and judges; then it is your will that sets to work and makes you do what is necessary for the work to be done. Thus will is the power of execution which should be at the disposal of what has been decided by you or a higher force. It is a thing coordinated and organised: it acts according to plan and is in full self-control. Wish or desire, on the other hand, is an impulse. There are people who are full of desires, but have no will; they are eaten up

MEDITATION AND WAKEFULNESS To have good meditation or contact with the inner world, if you are obliged to go into Samadhi, then your normal consciousness will remain always the same without changing. In other words, people who have a higher consciousness only in deep meditation, once they come out of it, are not worth more than what they were before. All their defects are there which they get back as soon as they get back their previous consciousness.1 Such people never progress; for they never establish a connection between their deeper consciousness, the truth of their being, and their external being. They take off their external being like a robe and put it a

THE SURRENDER OF AN INNER WARRIOR It means the the vital when it is converted. The converted vital is for the Divine like a warrior. The vital in man is the region of power and it is that which drives him to fight, to fight and conquer. It is the most difficult element to deal with: for it is this capacity to fight that also produces in the vital the spirit of revolt and independence, the will to follow its own will. But when the vital understands and is converted, if it is truly surrendered to the Divine Will, then its fighting capacity turns against anti-divine forces, the forces of obscurity that prevent the transformation: the powers of the v

VALUE OF RELIGIOUS EXERCISES What is the value of religious exercises (such as fapa etc.)? These things, if they help you, are all right; if they do not, naturally they are of no use. The value is quite relative. It is worth only the effect it has on you or the measure of your belief in it. If it is an aid to your concentration, then, as I say, it is welcome. The ordinary consciousness takes to the thing through a kind of superstition; one thinks, "if I go to the temple or to the church once a week, for example, if I say my prayers regularly, something good will happen to me". It is a superstition spread all over the world, but it has no spiritual value

PERSONAL EFFORT AND SURRENDER There is no difference in the end between the two if the goal to attain is the Impersonal Divine, that is to say, if you want to unite and identify yourself with the Impersonal Divine, merge into it. But if your aspiration is to reach what is beyond, what Sri Aurobindo calls the supramental Reality, then there comes in a difference, a difference in the goal as well as in the way. For the way to the supramental realisation is essentially the way of surrender. It is a question of temperament perhaps. And if one has the temperament, the disposition, the path of surrender is infinitely more easy: three-fourths of your trouble and dif

IV GENERAL BUDDHA AND SHANKARA (I) To escape from life is a teaching based on the view that life is an illusion. The teaching began with Buddha. Buddha said that life or existence is the fruit of desire and that there was only one way of getting out of the misery, namely, to go out of existence. Shankara continued in that line. He added, however, that existence was not merely the fruit of desire, but that it was altogether an illusion and that so long as one lives in that illusion, one cannot realise the Divine. For him the Divine—the Supreme Divine—did not exist. I believe his view was something to that effect. In any case, for the Buddha there

ORGANISE YOUR LIFE Moral notions have nothing to do with the growth of the inner being. I regret to say it, but the two are ill-assorted mates and go opposite ways. You may fall totally sick by doing a very unselfish act, on the other hand you may continue to be hale and hearty while doing the most egoistic acts. There is a great difference between a moral consciousness and a consciousness that is the expression of truth. I tell you again it is infinitely more difficult to have a. consciousness expressing the truth than to have a moral consciousness. For any blockhead who knows social rules and follows them has a moral consciousness, but to have a consciousness of

POETRY AND POETIC INSPIRATION I have said: "Poetry is sensuality of the mind". How is it so? It is because poetry is in relation with the forms and images of ideas—forms, images, sensations, impressions, emotions attached to ideas are the sensual or, if you prefer to call it, the sensuous side of things. All such relations are sensuousness. And poetry concerns itself with this idea of mind and thought. It approaches the world of ideas through their appearances, through the play of sensations and emotions around them. It is not like philosophy or metaphysics which endeavours to look into the inside of ideas. Poetry, on the other hand, cannot be poetry unless i

A SIGN AND A SYMBOL It is said that if you see a shooting star and make a vow at that time, the vow is sure to be fulfilled. Is it true ? It means that you must be able to formulate your aspiration during the time the star is visible, that is to say, a very short time. Now, if an aspiration can be formed and formulated in such a short time, it shows that the aspiration is there all the while quite at the front of your consciousness. Of course, the thing is true of the spiritual aspiration only: it is not applicable to matters of ordinary life. So I say that if you are capable of articulating your aspiration in a split second, it means that the object of your asp

LOVE DIVINE "The intensity of Divine Love does not produce any perturbation in any part of the being" (The Elements of Yoga). Why should it? If there is aperturbation, it is more likely that a different kind of love was in question. If it is Divine Love, there can be no perturbation, for each one receives it according to his capacity, Divine Love is there in its full intensity, as a tremendous force. But most people, 99 out of 100, feel nothing at all. What they feel is exactly in proportion to what they are, what they can receive and hold. Indeed, you are always bathed in an atmosphere vibrant with Divine Love. Sometimes, on rare occasions, for a few seconds perhaps