Mother’s Fulfilment In Human Life
October 27, 1989
Man seeks success and satisfaction in life. Society acclaims those who are successful and that brings status in the family as well as society. When our needs are met we are satisfied. Physical needs supplied brings in vital satisfaction and vital needs fulfilled gets us mental satisfaction. Securing the required result leads to satisfaction but fulfilment is a shade wider or higher. Psychological satisfaction secures fulfilment. What we know as job satisfaction which comes out of doing something in which you are skilled and proficient is one way of securing fulfilment. It also comes through the recognition of your capacity by your family and friends. Family and friends recognise your skills and capacities and that brings in something higher than the satisfaction which is brought in by material results. There is still a higher recognition. Often the family recognises your success as your success. It is valuable for them not because you are skilled and capable, but because you have succeeded. When friends want you to succeed they recognise you more than the result, more than your skill. In life such a family and such friends brings in fulfilment. One feels fulfilled to live for them, to succeed for their sake which is elevating.
Mother gives satisfaction even before result arrives. SHE gives man fulfilment when he secures satisfaction, i.e. elevates his life satisfaction into human fulfilment. She often gives satisfaction without results, recognition without skills, fulfilment without satisfaction, because SHE enters into the deeper layers of being irrespective of what obtains on the surface where result, skill, capacity and need dwell, and fills the depths. Therefore Mother gives fulfilment in Her life where life offers only satisfaction and brings the final fulfilment with or without the required skills. When man is capable of opening his depths Mother behaves like this. When a devotee who is endowed with skill, capacity and is normally blessed with satisfaction and fulfilment in life comes to Mother and works at his very best seeking not satisfaction or result or life fulfilment, is granted by Mother, Her Fulfilment in life. Here the devotee seeks only Mother and for that purpose works in life according to HER rules, of which result and satisfaction are individual by-products. His aim is Mother and SHE grants him HER fulfilment which is rich, intense, full, ripe and mature with Her consciousness.
Man working hard expresses his skill to produce a human result. Man seeking Mother in work makes it possible for Her to express in his work so that SHE will fulfil Herself in life. Incidentally SHE saturates him with HER consciousness through his work. He gets Mother's fulfilment, which means his being is filled with Mother and his life is filled with material results. Also, the material results are elevated from human products to divine creation.
The devotee praying to Mother seeks a material result, but the devotee seeking Mother in work secures Mother in the crevices of his subconscious being along with rich material results in work. To fill oneself with Mother, to secure Mother's fulfilment in life, the devotee needs to have that as his stated aim and work according to the process meant for it. For that purpose he needs to know the process, the details of the human instrument, the constituents of the society in which he works and of which he is a part and the inherent nature of work itself. Once endowed with that knowledge, he can set about examining his present position, so that it can be changed into the divine result in view.
Though this is not the aim of the devotee when he prays to Mother for a result or worships Her or relates to Her in some form of service, the element of Mother awarding Her fulfilment to the human instrument unasked will always be there, however small. Information fills the thought and thought elevates the mind, which feels enriched. When the mind dwells on Mother, Mother enters the deepest layers of the mind as light and saturates those layers. Later it expresses as knowledge and thought to express which new information that he stumbles upon is used. Mother's process is in reverse to the process of life. Life proceeds from information to knowledge to light; Mother starts with light and breaks it down to knowledge and information. With the devotee's opening to Her being greater than this, SHE enters into the soul, comes out into the being from where SHE slips into the parts of the being -- mind, vital, body -- that are open. Finally SHE spreads in each part of the being as their capacities and faculties.
Man can consciously endeavour to convert human action into divine expression by converting satisfaction into fulfilment. This is a yogic effort. Such an effort in life converts domestic life into yogic life or a life in yoga.
On occasions when Mother's consciousness is overwhelming either in intensity or in its spread, this happens by itself, i.e. Mother's fulfilment enters our life activities. Again when we approach Mother with an opening down to our depths, rather than aspiration or concentration, etc., we absorb Mother's consciousness more fully than can be contained by the depths. During such occasions the underlying consciousness surfaces and spills into our daily activities charging them with Mother's fulfilment. To accomplish the same result by our conscious endeavours we must consciously follow Mother's rules.
Mother coming to you in general not through work is elevating but will not carry intensity. Reading Her works, visiting a Center of Her Consciousness can bring Her consciousness to you. Occasions like Darshan will submerge you with an ocean of consciousness and the elevation is unmistakable and may last for some time but even that will not be intense because it is all passed from above while the being, the parts of the being, their faculties and their smallest gates remain closed. Work opens the body, emotions lay the nerve centres bare and thought that dwells on The Mother opens the mental faculties to Her. With such an opening SHE is able to fill your inside and outside to the full thereby creating an intensity during such an opening. Even such an opening which creates an intensity of Mother's consciousness in you, will not be everlasting. Faculties of the parts of the being cast into Her mold will be permanently open to Her, which alone can make the intensity last. As the work done according to Her rules results in elevation, parts of the being and their faculties accepting Mother's attitudes appropriate to them make that elevation permanent and more full. To list out all the faculties and the appropriate Mother's attitudes is possible. To add an example to each will complete the explanation.
To solve a problem we pray. We call in Mother to get rid of a trouble. For Mother to fulfil in our being, we call in Mother by following Her rules in the work. Prayer, consecration, offering would complete an incomplete job on hand. All this may not fully serve for Mother to be fulfilled in our being. For that we try to complete consecration, discover the correspondences, follow Her rules.
Many of our moments are dull and flat. Choose one of them and in doing it try to follow Mother's rules to make the act spontaneous, rich, fresh. The change will be evident, the process will be clear and unmistakable. Our life splits into many parts, each part exists in a scale of small to big events or acts. Men, work, thought, duty, family, property, money are some parts of our life. Suppose we choose work as a field of experimentation it is easy to grade our life into a scale of small to big works. Try the least work, convert it from dull, flat, neutrality to rich, intense, Mother's Consciousness by following any of Mother's rules like concentration or consecration or prayer, etc. When you succeed in it, proceed along the scale from small to big items of work. The result, the material benefit here is not so important as the success in learning the process of conversion which is transformation. The ultimate aim is to secure a victory over ourselves for Mother.
Mother says that there is a thin layer like an onion skin on the mind which prevents the mind from reflecting the Divine. That layer is made up of attitudes, opinions, beliefs, habits, etc. Though very thin to Mother's subtle vision, it is, SHE says, very tough. Our change of attitudes, opinions, etc. will pick holes in that thin layer and help to tear it away finally leaving us face to face with the Divine Splendours. How to pick holes there and how may holes are to be picked? I spoke of departments of life and construction of a scale of activities from low to high.
As man divides himself into body, vital and mind each of them further divides itself into a thinking mental part, feeling vital part and a physical substance. In the mind there is a part which is capable of pure thinking and another part capable of feeling, while the brain is the physical seat of mind. Mind thus splits itself into mental mind, vital mind and physical mind. In the vital too there is a thinking part known as vital mind, the sensational part is the vital proper while nerves are its physical seat. The thinking part of the body is called the body mind. It has a feeling vital part too while body, the pedestal of the whole being, is the material base of the physical part.
These nine parts are, in one significant sense, set in a graded fashion. It can be illustrated as follows:
| MENTAL | VITAL | PHYSICAL |
| (Pure Mind) | (Mental Vital) | (Brain) |
| 9 | 8 | 7 |
| MENTAL | VITAL | PHYSICAL |
| (Vital Mind) | (Pure Vital) | (Nerves) |
| 6 | 5 | 4 |
| MENTAL | VITAL | PHYSICAL |
| (Body mind) |
| (Body) |
| 3 | 2 | 1 |
These 9 steps may be regarded as graded except that the physical mind (7) is in relation with the body mind (3), mental vital (8) is in relation with the vital mind (6), while the first step of the physical body and the last step of pure mind are left unconnected with the other stages.
Man starts with the most physical act like climbing a tree and later develops an enthusiasm for climbing. At the third stage a knowledge of climbing gives him a skill. This is at the pure physical level.
A mathematics proposition for the pupil has nothing physical or emotional in it for him and hence is of pure thought. The boy who is emotional about an ideal which he understands like the ideal of Freedom for the country or Freedom from hunger, etc. has a thought about which he has an emotion. He who memorizes Thiru Vacha Kam or Gita does a physical work of the mind, i.e. brain.
Irritation at another for no reason is purely vital, whereas when you understand his character which irritates you it is vital-mind. A South Indian who is unable to eat for his breakfast anything other than idli has his vital eating habit fixed in the physical part of his vital.
If one is able to perceive the difference between these stages, he can construct a scale of 1 to 9 from pure mind to the physical body and try our experiment of seeking Mother's fulfilment in the dull, flat routine act. For this purpose he can choose any method from the long list of Mother e.g. prayer, consecration, concentration, etc.
Let him choose a math problem that defied his understanding earlier and now take it up for solution after serious prayer approaching its solution with the appropriate effort on all sides. Circumstances will change, help will come, mind will be receptive, obstacles will recede, solution will be in sight, maybe in the first attempt or as the first successful attempt. When the obstacle opens up, at its height the mind would be filled in with light and life itself will get a new opening for the man through the new way the mind began to function. Even at its lowest, the defiant proposition will lend itself to solution and add on to it other little glories appropriate to the faculty.
Taking up a causeless irritation caused by someone, when you want to transform it into one of Mother's occasions, anyone of Mother's methods will help. On seeing the man or knowing that the man would be coming today, consecration of the first thought and the subsequent emotions, if successful, will make you see the mind resting in calm and the vital undisturbed. Suppose the first effort is not successful, persistence will lead you after several efforts to mental calm and vital quiet. That is the change from negative to neutrality. Continuing the discipline one will see the man who was a source of irritation begins to be a source of pleasant excitation. The gain here is not the mere psychological change but a progress in consciousness from human instability to divine calm. This calm is not merely in the vital but penetrates deep down into the very being through the vital and helps lay a foundation to elevate the consciousness in general. Outwardly this will be seen in other occasions where everyone is irritated, you are untouched by it, and because of your presence, the occasion for general irritability passes off with a verbal exchange.
The endeavouring sadhak, if he constructs a scale of 9 points, and tries in succession from 1 to 9 one sample act at each stage for this conversion, he would reach the very last step much sooner than he would have covered the 1 stage completely, because his penetrating perseverance would be rewarded with an access to the end by its own intensity. Once he reaches a depth, it is for him to come back to the beginning stages and complete all stages fully.
Several such scales can be constructed, maybe a dozen of them each with 5 or 10 stages in the middle. It is possible for us to arrange the events of our life according to what is good and what is bad. The ends of the scale are the best and the worst with some stages in between. Conversion of one item at one end will help us begin.
Instead one can choose an act that is feasible for him to convert from dull neutrality to rich divine intensity and then confine himself to that level and plane and exhaust all such acts in the horizontal plane. Here the act will not become harder to handle. It will retain its character as before but will enlarge its scope. For example suppose a man chooses to convert an act of reading similarly and decides to confine himself to reading. To start with if casual reading like a story in a journal is converted, he continues his efforts to wider reading like a full length novel, a classic novel, to tough reading and finally to serious reading.
To intense characters a horizontal expansion may be insipid. They may try the same experiment in the vertical scale, where the intensity rises with each step leaving the horizontal plane unexhausted. Even in the 9 levels explained earlier, there is a horizontal expansion available for one to continue and exhaust his experimentation.
Human relationship can be a field of effort, if graded according to some scale, either intensity of emotion or width of interest. A scale in terms of time can be created from the earliest remembered time, with the index that the earlier the event the more difficult it is for conversion. A similar scale in terms of distance can also be constructed. Another one in terms of social importance is also possible. Yet another scale of yogic progress with man at the bottom and Mother at the top can be fixed for any type of act. Starting from where we are, we can fix stages for better men till the human is transcended by the Divine. Other scales in terms of lost opportunities or waning authority are of immense importance.
Though the list looks formidable, the beginning can be made by all, even by a child and striking results seen. A girl in the 8th standard expressed a desire to take to Mother more fully. No serious ideas can be discussed in this occasion. The child's enthusiasm was great and it is a serious child. She agreed to try a simple idea, simple in appearance. She chose the act of going to school and accepted the suggestion to convert it into an act of Mother's fulfilment. The method was to think that Mother takes the child to school holding her hand. The child did so and felt charged with joy. On reaching the classroom in the very first period the teacher was giving a lesson on Sri Aurobindo and asked if anyone had gone to Pondicherry, and advised the children to visit the Ashram when they go to Pondicherry. The child was in transports of joy by the ready response Mother gave to her thought. Her whole outlook on life changed. She was beaming and felt her entire life was in Mother's hands thereafter. It was no mere feeling but a fact deeply set in her nerves.
Man is of many parts, often a complex of several forces to the point of finding his life a matrix of forces from outside and attitudes from inside. Several of such complexities end up being complicated versions of human life. Yet, man lends himself to be described fully from one aspect of his life. We can as well say "Attitude is the Man". When we find attitudes rise from motivations we are inclined to say "You are what your motivations make you." In anyone individual there are a few leading motivations. Underneath them all, we may find one dominating motive. Whether the determining motivations are many or one, we know they decide our course of life. Changing human motivations into one that is decidedly directed to the Divine, one lays hand on a great source of his determining energies. It is possible for any of us to look into ourselves and locate some dominant motives and see how our life has been fixed by them so far. We are what we are today because of these motives. For those who understand this, another vista opens up. At the age of 35 or 50 one can know the vitiating influences of dissipating motives and the elevating effect of higher motivations. Our aim is to examine what motivations will help us convert a dull, flat, insipid human life into rich, intense, inspiring divine life. Each present motivation may have one corresponding higher motivation or many of the present ones need to be replaced by one single higher one constantly taking us to the Divine goal. Anyway looking into ourselves will be interesting and rewarding, if only we also review our past life and its land marks to find out how the course of life has been so far guided and how we have been the chief architect, rather the chief culprit.
The most generally prevalent attitude is one should be rightly understood. This is not a wrong attitude but not a laudable attitude in all circumstances, because one has to rise in life by hard work, initiative and adventure. Society always frowns on fresh initiative and ridicules adventure. Basically this attitude is good to the extent it prevents one from doing ridiculous things. In areas of human progress society allows only that much progress it has already achieved and by definition those who have this attitude will not be able to contribute to social progress. Society for us is our friends and relatives. By extension this attitude prevents us from achieving more than our relatives and friends have achieved. In fact, one who has taken this attitude, if submissive, will soon find the "society" he is in is anxious he should not come up to its level. Thus, even in the society, for a man to make progress this is not the best of attitudes, maybe it is a wrong attitude. Moreover attitudes accepted by a man soon tend to become compulsive and dominant over him. Should this attitude become dominant over a man's life, surely he will become a non-entity or at best a local celebrity. Suppose a man finds himself endowed with this attitude and now takes to Mother. He should first understand that by any rational approach this attitude has a very limited use and is ruinous if allowed greater scope. Having taken to Mother and aspiring to Mother's fulfilment in life, the motivation that he should accept must be a motivation that would impel him to Mother. In the context of this motive, Mother clearly says that the society is beside the point for the seeker who aspires to create a new society on Earth. As he aspires to be rightly understood by the society, the motivation is rightly transformed into "I should always be understood by Mother", thus replacing society by Mother. If Mother should rightly understand him, it is not enough he does the right thing, but it is necessary his urges to action must be right according to Mother. One who changes his work changes the energies, whereas one who changes his motivations changes the springs of his psychological energies. Men past middle age sometimes find past misunderstandings lingering as a psychological weight and act as a bar to their peace of mind. Parents misunderstanding children has ruined traditional families, boss misunderstanding an honest employee has ruined his career, and the list can be lengthened. Wisdom tells us that it is not enough to be right but it is necessary for us to be rightly understood by those who matter to us and the society at large. The truth of that wisdom is not to be questioned but there is more. Man who accepts that dictum is destined to be an also ran.
The amount of energies one has determines his scope and accomplishment. The energies are of several levels. Physical energy is the least effective and spiritual energies are the most powerful. While physical energies help do an act, the drive comes from nervous energies. Mental energies are high and important but will help accomplish only mental work. By human energy we mean nervous, vital energies. They get directed by mental directions and its energies. When vital energies accept mental directions, the result will be psychological action using psychological energies. Changing these human motivations divineward is the process to seek Mother's Fulfilment in life. As the mental knowledge and vital energies combine here, most of the man and his life are covered by this. As the energies are converted into Mother's energies at the very source, their expressions in life and their results are of Mother. Instead of social results, Mother's results issue.
Some people take the attitude towards parents or children or boss or spouse that the other person must be pleased. Most who espouse this attitude fail ever to please the other. The few who do succeed in pleasing the other person accomplish it only to the extent permitted by the other, which is not a laudable goal. This aim should be changed into "I should please Mother and only Mother". Trying to please Mother includes pleasing the other too in the long run. Pleasing the Mother makes us fulfil Her rules, thereby bringing us Her fulfilment.
Every human attitude is powerful and is a bar to reach Mother. It needs to be changed into an attitude appropriate to Mother. Below I give a few and say how they are to be changed:
Present Human Attitude | Changed Attitude Appropriate to Mother |
I should not offend anyone. | I should not offend Mother or Her rules. |
I must not be taken as a weakling. | My following Mother should not be weak. |
This will give rise to a scandal. | I must remove the root of scandal in me. |
This is below my dignity. | This is below my consciousness. |
At all cost I must please this person. | At all cost I must please Mother. |
It is an obligation I must discharge. | I am obliged only to Mother. |
This loss must be made good. | The cause of the loss in me must be removed. |
If I keep quiet now, I will lose everything. | If I keep quiet now, I will gain everything. |
I cannot spare him now that he speaks ill of me. | I cannot spare myself. |
I cannot accept defeat. | There is no defeat in Mother. |
I shall rise to (his, their) the expectations of someone. | I shall rise to Mother's expectations. |
I must make him understand somehow. | My ego should not be offended by his not understanding. |
I must be respectable in other's eyes. | I must be acceptable in Mother's eyes. |
I should do the right thing. | I should do what Mother wants. |
No one should mistake me. | Mother will always understand me as I am. |
There is nothing to be gained. | Mother can always be gained in greater measure. |
I shall not accept obligations. | I am not obliged to anyone except Mother. |
Mother gives us Her methods in several ways. One of them is when we are unable to do something She says we must tell Her, "Mother, I cannot do this. You go and do it for my sake." This is a very powerful method which invariably yields results. Sometimes in doing so you see Mother going out of you to the spot of work, the circumstances there changing and what was difficult yielding. Occasionally you see Mother's white hand in action. Sometimes you see the force as a lion or elephant or a jet of white light. Such a prayer always accomplishes the desired work. Even here on scratching the consciousness you will want the work to be done according to your preconceived ideas. Giving the work into Mother's hands, it is necessary you must allow Her to work according to Her wisdom. Keeping a lingering insistence may bring a result of your choice, but only when you put it into Her hands fully will it fetch you Her fulfilment.
A couple had a long quarrelsome life. Quarrel has become a way of life for them. One of them, on knowing this method, tried to experiment, "Mother, you go out of me and talk on my behalf". On the very first occasion to their utter surprise the conversation for 1-½ hours was conspicuous by the absence of a bad word. More. There was joy issuing out of each of them for no valid reason. They could go one step further and make that permanent by asking Mother to go and deal with their basic attitudes in life instead of just handling one conversation. The attitude here is human behaviour cannot change and therefore let us accept it as an unchangeable fact. Instead the attitude should be: "Offering anything to Mother makes the impossible possible. Therefore I am going to surrender this situation to Mother." Such a result can be understood as issuing out of consecration or prayer but really it is more than that. This is the result of transformation of human behaviour brought about by Mother and made possible by human aspiration.
When a man is confronted with a rival's activities, he prays to Mother. His prayer is for his victory and the rival's defeat. There is a better attitude. Instead of my succeeding over the rival through Mother's Force, I must pray for Mother to succeed in me over me, so that what in me created the confrontation with the rival will vanish. Victory is not for me or another but for Mother over me and my flaws. Many have the knowledge that victory is for Mother and not for us. As knowledge it does not carry any force, rather it is dry. When practised in a particular occasion, the knowledge turns into a yogic fact and force. Then it is fulfilling and delivers Mother's fulfilment. These are not formulas like computer instructions that answer to the touch, but by human effort and aspiration this knowledge must be converted into usable strategies which do act as computer instructions. For example if one tries to handle a vibration of irritation, an intense effort does succeed at the first attempt to remove irritation and generate joy. Not all people are capable of such an effort. They have to practise it with perseverance. The very first step for them is to make their decision of conversion final. After that attempts at conversion lead to subsiding of the irritation. Seeing the little result as an expression of his decision helps. Subsequently similar efforts to convert irritation lead to the absence of irritation. Next the scope of the decision must be expanded to embrace more areas of irritation. That brings in calm and quiet. Next follows some good positive results. Continuing the effort the sadhak witnesses the paradox of what starts as irritation when converted with determination gives rise to joy. Finally the joy is rich and intense. The original intense uncontrollable irritation now has turned into inconceivably intense natural joy issuing non-stop.
As for irritation, for every vibration a sustained effort on the above lines must be taken till the surface is cleared and the depths are penetrated by the yogic force that brings in transformation.
Mother's Fulfilment reveals at several levels. Ultimately it may give a clear vision of Mother, while as a minimum it may turn out to be one expression of the Divine aspect in daily life. Tolstoy describes in a story how Jesus came to a cobbler as kindness and occasions for him to be kind to others. It came to the 8th standard girl as a lesson on Sri Aurobindo after she fully felt the inner reality of Mother. The outer sign was the lesson on HIM.
For a man who values money as the only important thing in life, this came to him as double the salary for one tenth of his work. And that came as an additional income. While he could not outlive the sense of wonder, he was given a short additional charge for which he was paid 4 times his salary.
Irritation is vital and one may with stubborn perseverance manage to handle it. Physical acts done through habits like putting on the dress, brushing the teeth and even more getting up and sitting down belong to the realm of the subconscient, and therefore outside our normal observation. To convert one such movement in such a way as to extract out of it Mother's Fulfilment is perhaps the greatest act among the acts of this description. They are almost imperceptible and not easily within the reach of consecration or even observation. We would often find after several attempts that we invariably forget it before the brushing of the teeth. If at all it comes to memory, it may figure there after the act or sometime during the day. Still it is not impossible. At night our subconscient is at work. If we before going to sleep tell ourselves that we should remember the next morning on waking to consecrate the brushing of the teeth, chances are greater that we remember. Once the initial memory cooperates, a beginning is made. There are in the act of brushing some 100 movements of the hand, mouth, tongue, etc. To become aware of all of them and consecrate each of them, though an impossible task, may become possible for once in view of persistence. Should we succeed, what we feel may be what Devaki saw inside Krishna's mouth. She saw the wonders of the world in the open mouth. We may feel a thrill and ecstasy passing through the nerves during the act of brushing the teeth elevating a physical act into a movement of communion with the impersonal Divine. Either a delight in the nerves or an ecstasy in the being or flames of light in the mind will be seen making it an act of transformation. One time success may never recur, but it breaks the hard outer shell of unconsciousness.
This is a good beginning which initiates us into the scale. The rest is our work, since we now have seen once the opening. We have to proceed to learn the process of conversion, i.e. transformation, and gently but firmly initiate ourselves into it.
Should you fail here, which is most likely, you can try to imagine the brush, the mouth, paste, etc. as Mother. That may be helpful to a slow change but that way the full opening consecration gave cannot be attained.
Determination, perseverance, aspiration, consecration all combined may very slowly reward you the initial success after several years of effort. The first result is long delayed, because into this apparently simple act most of the essential yogic effort enters.
If you have chosen your scale by this time and are rewarded with the first act opening to your consciousness, then you have to choose your goal as to whether the day's activities are to be fully covered, like this or not. In doing so you will meet with mind's attitude to time, persons, work, money, etc. etc. etc. Following them the vital and body would come into the picture with their attitudes. You have to go the whole hog and at the end you discover that you have completed one round but only in the outline, while the body proper and the core of the matter remain untouched.
Meeting failures we suffer the consequences in life. Also we come to believe that failure is part of life and there is no use in fretting over it. Surely fretting and fuming over it is useless, but to resign oneself to it is dangerous to progress of any description. In yoga one who accepts failure will surely be a failure. If a part of the day is rich, the best part of the day is flat. Interesting events occur occasionally in life. The rest is routine. Failure, dull flatness, routine are part of life. Those who accept it as such will be part of human life. When we try to convert human life into Mother's Life, all these beliefs must be given the go by. All have to find a new approach and it is a must. Failure must be converted into success, dullness into freshness, routine must give place to spontaneous richness. All these are possible and are necessary if we seek Mother's Fulfilment.
There is a great chunk of dullness in human life. One must be aware of it first. Trying not to accept failure, dullness or routine will energise the person. About 75% of our life, even when we are active, is dull. To know that and try to change that is necessary. An active young man on a Sunday morning often finds life boring, wants to do something, or meet somebody. True he is energetic but has no avenue for the energy to express. Pleasant company or active work absorbs energy. To be energetic is better than lazy but energy cannot always be intelligently used. Often it finds expression in dissipation which is as bad as dullness. A man observing himself the whole day will find that his life is not fully meaningful and so he occupies himself in one fashion or another. Most organized persons carve out a way of life for themselves which is dullness organized into recreation or occupation. Often we hear from such people that one needs to be occupied. To be occupied is to be dull and non-creative.
You are unable to keep punctual after years of effort. You fail to keep track of your possessions and often lose some and take it for granted. You are unable to restrain yourself from uttering boorish or inappropriate things at the age of 40. The list of such failures can be a mile long. Effort taken to be punctual, keep track of every possession of yours without exception, successful self restraint in polite behaviour are things that will change dullness into freshness and lay the foundation for the change of human life into Divine spontaneity. The process we learn here is THE Process of transformation.
Complaining is a common trait. Mother prohibits it. We can restrain ourselves from complaining. That is good manners. Great things will not issue out of manners whose source of power is that of mind over the vital. It is mind that enforces itself over the vital impulse to complain. We see the cause for complaint but refuse to voice it. But the mind understands that the cause is there. As long as the cause is in our mind, the mind certainly will be complaining. As the vital can be controlled by the mind, the mind can be educated out of the complaint. If you examine the cause for complaint, some will vanish, others will reveal our ignorance. What appeared to be outrageous at first sight will be less so. The other man, we will soon find out, will have a right reason for what he does. Continuing the enquiry the mind will no longer feel that there is a reason for complaining. Not only the speech will be polite but now the mind will not voice any complaint. This is a great progress but no great spiritual gain will be there. All that there is, is an undisturbed mind. The mind has no capacities to go farther than this. Behind what we see as a cause for complaint against, sometimes there may be a valid reason. Mind can understand that. What the mind can never understand is behind what we complain against, there can be something that is trying to help us. This is an attitude of the whole, the whole that excludes nothing. Mind being partial can never reach it. That which is able to perceive it is the spiritual element in the mind. The spirit can see a positive aspect behind what mind complains against as negative. When you are able to see it, you see the fullness of life in what appears to be a cause of complaint for the mind. For us to change our mental attitude that has an urge to complain into one of something that perceives a fulfilment is the transformation we look for. That attitude can bring in Mother's Fulfilment. Anyone can look back on his life and see this aspect is true. A man lost his head over his sister's daughter. When the sister refused to comply, the man almost died and vociferously complained against the ingratitude of the sister. Soon after the girl's marriage into another family, that family went bankrupt. The man could not complain any more with the same intensity. May be he secretly thanked his stars.
What complains is the vital mind. Teaching the vital mind not to complain and giving it a spiritual perspective that what appears as complaint is really fulfilment disguised widens the vision of the narrow vital which jumps around. That vision spiritualises the vital and makes it calm. A calm vital is the first step for the Pranamaya Purusha, the vital being, to enlarge. By becoming calm the vital becomes more receptive to the Divine Consciousness, turning the vital into an instrument of spirit. Though this is long, persistent work, the initial spurt of the Divine Touch will be unfailing. Mother has included this discipline in Psychic education because of its importance. For the psychic emergence is preceded by the vital being coming out into the open.
Creation needs enormous energy. In the embodied being the release of that energy turns into restlessness of the being, which is felt mostly in the physical. Its common expression is impatience. In the mind that energy shows itself as constant running thoughts. We get into the mental habit of being occupied with something. What bothers becomes a preoccupation. The nature of the mind is it should be occupied or preoccupied. Otherwise it cannot exist as mind. While preoccupation is a bother, being occupied is a way of life without which life is not possible. If you expect someone in the evening to call on you, sometimes you start expecting him from the morning. It does not mean that he is important, you are attached to him or some any thing. It only means the mind got into a preoccupation. This is a way in which mind functions. When we learn a new skill, a work of 3 minutes when you have to exercise that skill occupies the mind for 3 hours or 3 days. Later when it becomes a habit, the work comes to the mind only when you do it and not before or after. Mind is ordinarily occupied with one thing or another, especially the new entrants into it. When the work becomes a habit, the habit goes into the subconscious leaving the conscious mind free. Mind overcomes preoccupation through a habit. That is not the only way or the best way. It can also get rid of the preoccupation by not resorting to a habit by doing the work as a piece of divine work through consecration. That way mind is lifted out of the stress-generating preoccupation to Divine instantaneous execution. Consecration brings in Mother's consciousness and along with it the Divine Freshness. The Freshness takes hold of the work, executes, and leaves behind no trace. To look at mind at moments of preoccupation or simply being occupied and endeavour to detach the work from the preoccupation will lift us out of the human moment to Divine eternity. This is a patient work to be done little by little, item by item where each little thread is to be disentangled from the knot. But the result will be rewarding. To accomplish this feat once with one item of work will reveal all the processes involved. That itself will be a great gain. To proceed to complete it is regular yogic exercise whose rewards are great.
To suffer failure is common; to accept failure is not so common. One who accepts failure and therefore the status quo out of which he endeavoured to lift himself, comes to accepting fatality. Fate is different from our mentality coming to accept failure and developing an attitude of fatality. Possibly no man is an exception to this attitude in one measure or another. In any man's life there is a given up area, given up for ever. That may be small but it will always be there. If in the life of the man such an area is non-existent, progress will be non-stop. It is for us to take up all those items of life where we gave up and examine now, whether there is nothing to be done. More than solving the problem they have created, it is necessary to get out of the attitude of fatality if you wish to try Mother's Fulfilment. Some may lend to greater efforts, others to greater interest. A few may demand greater knowledge and others greater perseverance. If anything is still left out, it may need greater something. We have to find out what it is. Given up cases will lend themselves to solution if the full necessary attention is given to it. Suppose we take up all past items of life given up and now solve them fully, we will find ourselves a new man equipped with a new attitude, i.e. there is no problem that cannot be solved. Starting from fatality to arrive at this optimism one finds himself charged with energy all the way along. New opportunities open up and new fulfilments arise on the horizon. The being turns 180 degrees from darkness to light, opening a new phase.
Wisdom is to know the other man as he thinks himself to be. Culture is to act as the other man wants us to act. Accomplishment is to make the man accomplish what you want. To come across people in life of the above description is rare. For us to acquire these things is not easy but certainly will make life worth living. Here the other man is Mother. To know Mother as we should know, acting as Mother wants us to act and letting Mother accomplish in ourselves what SHE wants to accomplish is transformation of knowledge, emotions and life.
Man accepts not only failure but many other things. The greatest negative belief we have is the belief in karma. It is felt that India is poor because the faith in fate and karma make Indians resign to a poor life. Also they believe that the West is progressing because they are not vitiated by the oppressive weight of karma.
Because man believes that his progress is in the hands of something external like karma, that belief itself vitiates his inherent power. It is true karma has a power over man, but it is not true it is the ultimate power over him. Many have gotten out of the clutches of karma by taking to Mother in one aspect or one item. When people hear of catastrophic predictions from astrologers they come to Mother to have it removed. But all that is good as far as that event goes. Mother tells us how to get out of the vicious hold of karma once and for all. Should a man endeavour to learn it and come out of the rule of karma, he emerges into the open. That base is necessary for Mother to flower in our life. To enable Mother's blossoming in our life and being we should come out of karma. The first step for that is not to have faith in karma or any external influence whether it is beneficial or otherwise. There is a long list of things in which man puts his ultimate faith like karma. How imperceptibly these faiths pervade a man's life is rarely understood. Character, misfortune, fate, luck, horoscope, time are the things that rule the man's daily life and decide at crucial moments of his life. He has to know that before Mother all these beliefs are meaningless. Mother comes into our life like the sun rising. After that if we cling to all these ghosts, no wonder they rule over our lives. We must come forward to give them all up. Not only that, we must examine the areas of our life where their remnants remain with a vengeance. We may ask why we should give up luck which is a good thing. Luck may be good, but if we believe in it we are limited to luck, which is narrow; whereas Mother is wide. Luck, though better than karma, is still capable of narrowness. For Mother to flower we need a freedom which even luck cannot offer us. Luck offers us freedom to prosper. Prosperity is only one aspect of life. Mother offers us freedom to flower in every walk of life. Also life is only one part of the being. To flower in all parts of the being is what Mother offers to every one of us.
"Act as if Mother is watching you because SHE is watching you", says Sri Aurobindo. We act according to our convenience, do a work only when supervised. If we are interested personally in a work, we do it; otherwise we do not. Those who have a sense of duty do it for duty's sake. Others do it for conscience's sake. Some others do it for the sake of good culture. For goodness' sake a rare few act. A rarer few act for God's sake. Sri Aurobindo asks us to act for Mother's sake. Let us forge a relationship with Mother as if SHE is the Giver, the Ista Deva, the Friend, the Beloved, the Master, the Mother and all. And let us act for that sacred relationship's sake. That will bring us a rare fulfilment, a FULFILMENT which Mother alone can give. Acting in life we produce results. Working for the country one offers service and the country rewards him with power. Working for Mother SHE enlarges your being, its faculties, its capacities, enriches them with joy, happiness and bliss. Where life gives results, Mother gives results that include joy. Where the field gives you power, Mother gives you power that is elevating. Acting for the sake of salary, you get the salary. Acting for Mother the salary is earned through enjoyment. Acting for duty's sake, one feels righteous. Acting for Mother fulfilling one's duty, Mother will do Her duty towards you which is to elevate your consciousness.
A lady took to Mother and dyana. She has the rare capacity to meditate non-stop for hours the whole day. She went to visit her ailing uncle who is given to dyana. He could not recognise his niece at first sight and was intrigued by the magnificent look of charm on her face. Recovering from the first perplexity he asked her if she was his niece and whatever happened to her face. He exclaimed that her face grew charmingly beautiful and he could see the beauty of divine grace on her face. He was quite unwilling to send her away when she took leave. People do not meditate to look nice, but that is incidental and a welcome development. A girl tried to pray non-stop for 3 days and found it difficult. She gave it up and repeated Mother's name as often as she could. Her face took on a shine. Her friends began to notice it and asked what face powder she was using. People pray to solve a problem on hand. The incoming Mother's consciousness has other desirable side effects. Mother fulfils Herself in many ways inconceivable to us.
A young man went to a news stand and while he was buying some journal heard the owner of the stand admonishing a teenager who was glancing through the periodicals saying, "This is not a free library. If you want, you buy." The young man went to a video shop hired a cassette and came home to see the picture. In the film he witnessed a scene where the owner admonishes saying, "This is not a free library. If you want, you buy." Hearing the same comment in a video which he heard an hour ago in life, the young man was struck. Life has such striking correspondences which emerge according to the level of the consciousness to which it relates. The young man, being a devotee, has witnessed an hour earlier what he was going to see on the video screen. His subtle senses open on to life to reveal life's hidden secrets. Life is full of such truths and correspondences. Mother often acts through them, depending on the level of the consciousness of the sadhak and his mental attitudes. His attitudes determine what he gets from life. This young man is a keen observer and Mother brings into his ambit a correspondence of life to add to his observed store of facts.
When everything is lost, our prayer is from the depths. We do not pray so fervently in small matters. As we are plunged in life, a deep prayer takes us to Mother and solves the problem, whereas a shallow prayer does not evoke such a response. Instead there is another way of functioning. Mother and life are as if land and water separated by a thin watershed. Man is on the watershed but a little into life. Some are deeply set into life. The devotee comes nearer and nearer to the parting line, but he keeps his hold on life by planting his feet firmly on the side of life. If he is not near the parting line and is deeply buried in life, he must move towards the line of separation. This he accomplishes by following the rules of Mother's Life. By doing so in matters small and big, he is almost on the line of separation or nearer to it. Calling Mother for any reason from this line or from near this line pitchforks the man onto Her side. Organising one's life so as to be on the line of partition, one can easily invoke Mother for anything however small. Her rules bring you to the centre and place you in proximity to Mother's land. A call for any reason pushes you into it.
Ancient grudge is what irks the memory. As desire for fame is the last infirmity of noble minds, we can as well say ancient grudge is the last dark spot to leave the yogic psychology. Grudge is of the vital. It does not learn to unlearn. After many ignorances and weaknesses have fallen off and only a couple of things are left on the screen of the mind, one can find earlier memories of having been betrayed or humiliated. They are difficult to give up. Any amount of consecration will leave them intact at the roots. Consecration can mitigate their force but cannot all by itself uproot them altogether. Knowledge and that too vital knowledge can do it. If someone has betrayed you or humiliated you, surely you can see his wrongdoing. Even if you are in the right, you were in a position to let him humiliate you. You were not strong enough to prevent it. Your then weakness was a vital ignorance. Other men in your position do not let themselves be wronged because of some other talent or resourcefulness or alertness. When you realise that weakness is an ignorance and your mind is able to see the truth, the force of the grudge comes down. In an election if you get only a minority votes, you are not angry at your rival. You are able to know it as electoral weakness. Similarly each vital darkness that you are not able to give up can be approached from the knowledge side and removed.
All our devotees read His books and Mother's books. The result is of different descriptions. The best result will come when you know where you are and what benefit accrues to you from the reading. One can read without understanding and that too will have the external mantric power. You can read and understand the argument in the book. Further you may grasp the idea behind the argument. Perception may develop and the central theme will reveal to you. The amplitude of perception may widen and the construction of the theme, idea and argument will be clear. Higher still your consciousness may commune with the consciousness of the book to rise. Finally Sri Aurobindo may reveal to you in full splendour and the message of the writing reach you. The best result will issue when you know where you are and choose the method suited to that level. That fulfils your mental consciousness as never before.
This theme can be stated, restated, in as many ways as there are expressions in life. Mother fulfils our desires. This aspect when more clearly understood implies a duty from us to Mother. As SHE fulfils our desires, we must, at that level where our desire acts, fulfil Her ideals. She works with our swabhava, which we are seized with and are anxious to express. So we must work for the fulfilment of HER mission at the level of our swabhava. One may ask what it means. We have several characteristics like impatience, anger, expectation, laziness, etc. Suppose we are working to remove anger or impatience, the rule is we must not force ourselves more than what our swabhava or nature would permit. Similarly we must not refrain from forcing ourselves where our swabhava will permit. Consider impatience. You are working on it. You want to get rid of impatience and see in several things it works and in others you fail. It will be obvious to you where one ends and the other begins. Suddenly in the morning the impulse of impatience rises expecting the postman. You admonish yourself for having lost your moorings. Suddenly the impulse comes under control. A few days later you hear a decision about your promotion has been taken and the communication will reach you in a few days. Expectation rises and you want to go to the office to know it now rather than wait for 2 days. You try to catch yourself and discipline the impulse. It refuses and vibrates below the surface. In such a case it is better to go to the office and know the news without suffering tension for 2 days. In future you know where it works and where it does not. Human nature is such that for others the impatience may come under control in the matter of promotion and not in meeting the postman. What is important is we must know the dividing line for us.
Sri Aurobindo says he adores the feet of the criminal and harlot. In the scheme of creation greater souls come forward to shoulder the more difficult jobs shunned by the smaller souls. Criminal is one such. Behind this is a greater truism. In society we classify some as right and some as wrong. What is wrong according to the society is right according to the spirit and in fact is a greater right. A greater spiritual right appears as wrong in the eyes of the society. So the criminal is a criminal as long as he honours the society. When he realises his soul, he finds himself not as a criminal but as a greater soul. Valmiki's life explains it. Extending the argument to smaller details of life, each act frowned upon by the society as wrong has behind it a greater spiritual truth than we normally know of. In our scheme of things we proudly speak out our accomplishments and hide the skeletons. The skeletons may be horrible or minor things to be ashamed of. Choose one little thing and try to decipher the truth behind it. Suppose the spiritual truth comes out, you get a minor rebirth and that gives you a process by which everything you were ashamed of till now can be turned into a spiritual glory. If you are unable to decipher it, past consecration will do it for you. Here, for the glory to reveal itself you have to cross the final limit, i.e. the past consecration must be complete 100%. Till 99% it will not reveal itself.
To begin with a small experiment can be made. Either deep understanding or past consecration can reverse the personality and open it to the soul. The process of a bad man changing into a good man is what the world knows. Analysis of his own bad quality and discovery of the spirit behind is a phenomenon not known to the world. Sri Aurobindo in Hymn to The Mother of Radiances mentions how ego, greed, selfishness, etc. would change into their divine counterparts as if He is explaining this principle. Behind greed is the unceasing quest for more. He says it would change into untiring search for Truth in the Divine scheme of things. Any bad quality requires a skill to execute it, a skill far greater than is needed to implement a good quality. Society approves of the good quality and therefore it need not be protected from all around. A bad quality is suspect, and when smelt, the society would pounce upon it from all sides. So, the man endowed with a bad quality needs to have a lot more alertness and a far greater power of organisation than a good man. So, most of the reserves of a bad man go to provide a shield for him. When he realises this hidden potential and understands how the pure skill part in him can find social employment, he discovers his energies multiply several fold. The spirit behind can now emerge in this new dimension. Because of the social stance, he had to act in a clandestine manner. Now that self knowledge has relieved him of his underground existence, the full energies emerge. And with that the spirit rises in full splendour.
Life is a mixture of good and bad. Human nature is also like that. In the society and in our personal life we take an effort to avoid what is bad and express only the good, do only the good. This is required in life. Coming to Mother we find Mother and life are mixed. We must endeavour, if we seek fulfilment in Her, to suppress and avoid life, its attitudes, its rules and endeavour to express Mother, Her rules, Her attitudes, etc.
After taking to Mother seriously one will find that Life is at pains to show only its right side to you. This will make our life pleasant and comfortable. When we seek Mother more in our life i.e. seek to express only the Truth for Her sake, Life will lose its politeness towards us and endeavour to show only its dark side to us till we submit to it. During this phase unless you cling only to Mother, Life will destroy you. You are sure of total victory if you return to life only Mother. Sticking to Mother alone will save you from the wrath of Life. When you succeed, Life will submit itself to you.
Sri Aurobindo writes in Savitri that there is no falsehood because there is no fear. Fear is the basis of falsehood. For every human defect there is a basis. Let us organise our life in such a way that such bases do not exist in us. In an organization that spends a good amount or in a family, one bad person can cheat others of money. Being a family or a local personal organization, money is spent on trust. Trust becomes a source for a bad character to cheat. Introduce accounting and there can be no cheating. Accounting is a system that compels everyone to be honest. When we discuss past events, we forget. Bad characters take the occasion to lie. Maintenance of written records in matters of importance prevents people from being dishonest. Within a family the habit of sharing every information fully and frankly will prevent in future doubts giving rise to gossip and distrust. Most of the errors and lapses and dishonesty, etc. are impossible if people decide not to lie at all. One can examine his own life and adopt every procedure that is needed to preserve the goodness of his future.
When man is working hard and intelligently, is honest and clean, and the whole office admires his integrity and efficiency, he finds promotion goes to another and not him. Not only he but the whole office is frustrated. Sometimes that coveted promotion is not only denied to the most legitimate person who deserves it but is given to an undeserving dishonest person. These are occasions where man is fully convinced that it is foolish to be sincere. And such convictions are final. For such a man there is no fulfilment in life. Mother's Fulfilment is an evanescent dream for him. Often those who suffer are very good people, even good souls. What should a devotee caught in such a position do?
A very simple fact is missed. Integrity satisfies the conscience. Efficiency brings work results. Promotion is a result in life. Integrity and efficiency are essential for promotion but are only partial. Job is in life. Success in job is success in life. Apart from efficiency, success needs strength too. If your employer is to award promotion and the company is to decide it, you must have strength with the deciding authority. Often the seats of power are in the hands of politicians or intriguers. He who can handle these forces carries the reward in life, leaving the deserving dismayed. Life has only one solution, i.e. there should be a bitter dose of dishonesty. Rama & Krishna used them because it is inescapable. All successful great men resort to it in one fashion or another either in the open or behind the scenes in one form or another. Wise men consider puritans who refuse the admixture of dishonesty or falsehood as foolish specimens.
Mother's solution is the very opposite. The more you refuse the admixture, the more SHE comes to your help. If you are honest and efficient but are deficient in life power, She readily supplies it -- often without prayer. Mother has not deserted an honest person even once. Before one seeks Mother's Fulfilment such a situation stands as a bar. Life rewards strength and not mere efficiency or honesty. To win laurels from life you should be strong in terms of life. Without strength, life will not give you the plum. For a devotee who does not have that strength, Mother gives it. Only that his efficiency and honesty must be total. This area needs to be cleared for several people before they seek Mother's Fulfilment.
Seeking for a result or solution from Mother is different from seeking Mother's Fulfilment in life. For a result, it is enough one prays. Faith or prayer or consecration can give you the result. Fulfilment comes out of being capable of receiving Mother in our skills, capacities, faculties and parts of being. For that they should all work according to the rules of Mother. Immediately we understand it is a unattainably high goal. We tend to believe it is a yogic goal. Let me say Mother's Fulfilment is to reach the maximum in horizontal expansion. For Mother's Fulfilment one needs to reach the maximum of perfection, not in the vertical scale but in the horizontal dimension. Life exists in two dimensions, horizontal and vertical. Life is not like a pole but like a mountain, wide at the base. A pole is thin and high. A mountain is wide at the bottom and rises to a height narrowing to a peak as it rises. The local politician rises to the level of the district, state and the centre. That is his vertical growth. Horizontally the local man starts as a volunteer, becomes a leader of volunteers, becomes a municipal councillor, town committee member, town committee President and in the end of his career the Municipal Chairman, thereby completing his horizontal growth by reaching a local pinnacle. In this essay yogic progress is vertical growth, life fulfilment is horizontal growth. At each level there is a horizontal maximum which gives life fulfilment. As the Municipal Chairman is still a politician and without political influence he cannot reach there, horizontal fulfilment is still yoga and without following yogic principles life fulfilment is unattainable.
He who seeks life fulfilment in Mother or Mother's Fulfilment in life must have his thoughts, feelings and sensations changed into Mother's consciousness. This again should not be mistaken. The fullness asked for is at the horizontal level not at the vertical level. Suppose you are arranging a family work, say building of a house or wedding. In inviting your relatives and friends, if we say your emotions must be perfect and sincere to satisfy the norms of Mother, that your consecration of the invitation must be complete, your invitation should not in the least be formal and be totally sincere, it is possible for a man to rise to this occasion 100%. At his own family level, he will be capable of being 100% in following Mother's rules. The same person put in charge of a district level function will not be able to be half perfect, because it is vertical growth. Following of Mother's rules must be perfect means, must be perfect at his own local level. That, anyone is capable of. Granting that anyone can reach the 1ocalised perfection, he can get Mother's Fulfilment. At the localised level of functioning, everything must be 100% and perfect. He can create in himself a course of functioning having first reached the 100% perfection. That course will do the rest.
All attainments in life such as being an industrialist like Tata or a leader like Indira or attain eminence like Mahesh Yogi are in the horizontal levels at their maximum.
It is not difficult to distinguish between horizontal expansion and vertical growth, though the lines of demarcation cannot be drawn with any decided fashion, since both require the same qualities. What differs is the level of qualities. The key lies in seeing the strength of a quality different from the level of strength. It can be explained to some extent in terms of skill, capacity, values, organisation and character.
A work comprises of several units. To complete the work one needs a capacity, whereas to complete a unit you need the skills for that unit. Capacity is the strength that accrues as effective residues from possessing various skills. Skills can accomplish a unit of work to which the skill is relevant. One needs the capacity relevant to a work to accomplish it. In an institution there are several works. To arrange all the works each in coordination with all the others, the capacity required is organisation. While skill accomplishes a unit of work, capacity is needed to complete a work. Organisation is necessary for a man to advance in the same plane horizontally and to reach the top post.
Values are higher ideas of the soul accepted by the vital under the direction of mind. Loyalty is a quality of the soul which is to be implemented by the vital. Vital constantly shifts and can implement it only when the mind too has accepted it and compels the vital to follow. Loyalty, honesty, integrity, faithfulness, reliability and all values are necessary for man to move from the horizontal plane to vertical plane. Without values one cannot launch himself on vertical growth. How high one rises vertically is decided by the strength of character.
Skill that is acquired by training completes a unit of work. Capacity that comes from possessing various skills accomplishes a whole work. Organisation that enables us to complete several works in coordination is necessary to complete horizontal growth. Values are essential to move or rise vertically. The vertical height of final accomplishment is determined by the character and its strength.
Skill comes by training. Capacity comes by several skills. Complete knowledge of skills and capacity gives organisation. Mental obedience of the soul creates values. Vital mind's obedience of the soul and mind implements values. Character is given by the physical mind and its base is the body.
When revolutionary changes occur, the greatest benefits of the revolution are offered to one and all without discrimination. Throne and crown were the divine right of the royal family. Democracy came and on the throne sat a paper boy, a steel worker, a cobbler. In seeking Mother's Fulfilment one seeks a psychological revolution inside himself. That revolution when accomplished can bring the very highest seat to the most common of men. The devotee who is a common place citizen through this inner revolution can make the highest status in the world available to him. The highest status in the world is the maximum of horizontal expansion, whereas the vertical growth ends in the supramental plane. When education is made available universally, what was open to the highest bracket of the society is then available to the lowest stratum. Technological advance brings to the commonest of men what was available to the top elite. Yoga, supramentalisation, evolving into a higher being, spreading supramental consciousness, etc. -- I put down to vertical growth and do not take up for explanation. Solving problems, opening opportunities, developing faculties, accomplishing more than we have been accomplishing, seeking for results, recognition, rewards, fulfilment are in the horizontal plane. At an acme of the horizontal plane lies Mother's Fulfilment. Mother's consciousness solves our problems by our prayer. By securing Mother's consciousness in an intensity greater than our life vibration, we open up opportunities. By receiving Mother's consciousness into our faculties instead of merely in our atmosphere by making our faculties work according to Mother's ways, fresh opportunities open up. By receiving more energy, higher skill, greater capacity into ourselves, we tend to accomplish more than we are used to. When we exhaust this much, our life expands horizontally by virtue of greater endowments and takes us to the end of life, thereby opening to us the maximum life has in store. Those who come forward to train themselves in new required skills, who acquire a series of skills and therefore a higher capacity, who organise their work so as to acquire a higher organisation, when they espouse a value tend to rise vertically and go up as far as their strength of character takes them. In the absence of vertical growth, the incoming energy helps the expansion horizontally and therefore sooner or later, hits the ceiling.
Man's strength is his soul. He is unaware of it and runs after sensual pleasures and a million other things that are not his strength but his weakness. Recognising the soul, relating to the soul in daily work, trying to bring it out will bring the best out of you and make human life into Divine manifestation. Man is not in a position to be aware of it. Also he is not inclined to take that path. Some are inclined to follow the path of the soul but do not know how. For them there is a route open. If Soul and Nature are a duality, there are many other grades of dualities between man's immediate awareness and the height of his existence where Soul is opposed to Nature. Good and Evil, good and bad, light and darkness, high and low, Dharma and Adharma, conformity with the society and defiance, duty to family and negligence, discipline and dissipation, obedience and disobedience, work and laziness, survival and death, etc. etc. He who is willing to follow the right path can always make the right choice. The forked road situation faces all men at all times. The choice is his. Making the right choice and moving up the scale on the right side, he can always be making a progress. If the effort called for at any time demands all his energies, he is sure to make all the progress making the right choice.
Children of sadhaks and devotees will have an atmosphere of Grace. If the children are themselves devoted to Mother and given to reading Her works, there will be a reservoir of Grace inside. Such a child must know the reservoir inside and act in life so as to draw upon it. Parents' punya and the rich atmosphere one is born in are there for them as wealth is there for rich children. Turning their education to Grace, their minds will flower into Light. Shaping their motivations according to Mother, their inner beings will become the permanent source of Grace as the outer atmosphere now carries Grace by virtue of their circumstances.
If you are enveloped by Grace and are capable of sustained great work, it should be given to pursuit of serious mental or academic work, so that it will take you to the height. The normal impulse is to give that capacity of work to what one likes such as a hobby.
Endurance is a great endowment. Such children, if endowed with endurance, are a great dynamo. Should they know their strength and use their high quality to come closer to Mother in one fashion or another, endurance will finally lead to equality which is equal to yoga. Oblivious of your strength such an endowment lies wasted. If any, it goes to endure the rank injustice the boorish people around you inflict on you.
Man does not think. He acts without thinking. Best of people think enough to understand. Thinking in the sense that two thoughts are taken up by the mind to consider each in the context of the other is a rare phenomenon. Organising one's thinking which leads to original thinking is what one never meets with. In all children of mental bent born and brought up in Mother's atmosphere, this possibility of original thinking is there in potential. They are not aware of it. They think in a vacuum.
People come to Mother at different ages, in different contexts and for different reasons. Everyone receives a multiple dose of Grace suited to their situation. One is put in proximity to knowledge but he instead of drawing upon the fund of knowledge for his own benefit, maintains a distance. The spiritual atmosphere in which one lives gives a subtlety to the faculties. Either it should be used for yogic progress or life fulfilment. He uses it to play pranks on others which finally recoils on himself. Mother's atmosphere brings one public respect which he never had. Instead of using it properly, he puts it to the minimum use receiving it at the lower end. "Ready Grace" available is used up to exhaustion to be petulant.
Devotees or sadhaks living in Mother's atmosphere or elsewhere do not have much difficulty in making the right choice in a forked road situation. Should you make the right choice, the road opens for you. Should you continue to make the right choice at every step, you end up in Mother's Fulfilment in Human Life.
Man is moved to serious concerted action only when he is moved by a crisis or problem. That is general. It does not occur to him he can act with equal seriousness moved by an opportunity presenting itself to him. His behaviour has ensured him his survival. For survival it may be enough. Life periodically develops crises and man moves to counter it. As long as his aim is survival, life continues to plague him with crises. Rather by his own attitude, man compels life to periodically offer him problems. Seeking a more positive thing like fulfilment, this attitude is not enough. A more positive attitude is called for. Responding to the problem is negative; responding to an opportunity is positive.
Taking the attitude of readily responding to the opportunities his life offers, man opens his positive centres inside. This is a better approach to life in general and a suitable approach to Mother in particular. It is easier to reach Mother's Fulfilment by responding to opportunities than by seeking survival responding to problems.
Mother's Fulfilment lies beyond life. To secure it one should cross the borders of life. To change the negative traits into positive ones, is enough to solve a problem. It is necessary to transcend the positive traits to obtain Fulfilment in Mother.
A boy who is unable to pass and who seeks help at the last minute can at best work hard and convert his very poor scores into not so poor ones. At the last hour, in his precarious position, if he agrees to learn English writing, which no one in his school has ever done, it is not merely moving from negativity to positivity but going beyond that. Such an attitude is taken note of by Mother and SHE offers HER Fulfilment as the first rank pupil in the class. Effort taken by the devotee, discipline accepted by him can be ordinary or extraordinary or exceptional. Ordinary efforts have ordinary results, exceptional efforts have exceptional results. A woman's father had cancer and she saw the intestines have developed secondaries and doctors had no hope. With her science education, having heard the doctor's explanation and having seen the opened intestines, she came out emphatically "Mother will save my father." This faith is exceptional. His cure too was exceptional. Several other cancer patient's families write about the cases and pray for cure. In most cases initial response of relief contrary to the doctors' expectation is felt. It surprises the doctor, patient and the family. They approach Mother in an ordinary way. Sometimes the patient is spared of the agonising pain accompanied by the disease. Later there is no progress. In cases of cancer, prayer to Mother in the early stages will fully cure. Seeking Mother's help at the very last hour calls for a very special effort.
To rise above the normal social attitudes is difficult; to give up psychological attitudes is more difficult. For a greater effort the response from Mother is equally greater. If I am a clerk or low officer meeting a high placed official like the chairman of a commission, for me to be conscious of my social position all the time is natural. Every belief in me expects to be treated according to my position. To rise above that attitude mentally is no mean effort. Psychological effort is greater. Your theatre or a valuable property was occupied by a diabolical character who posed as a friend. During days of intimacy he has enticed away the papers he has signed and you have foolishly parted with them; Years have gone by. Neither law nor circumstance nor money is on your side. For you to believe that this rogue will voluntarily quit the place and behave honestly is naivete. For you to have faith in the Divine, overcoming your psychological attitude that he who is in possession will not quit on his own, requires a greater inner effort than you have taken at any time in life. Still, it is possible and Mother's rewards too are possible. In every situation there is scope to give up social attitudes and there is room to take an inner effort to give up psychological attitudes. For the latter effort comes Mother's Fulfilment in life.
Mother's Fulfilment is not merely a greater material reward but a higher human fulfilment. Following Mother's rules in life, She gives man in human circumstances a fulfilment greater than he ever dreamed of, thereby fulfilling Herself in his life.
Sri Aurobindo's famous book Life Divine is on Omnipresent Reality and The Universe. Common experience of its readers are it is un-understandable and passes their comprehension. Those who have the linguistic or academic equipment can always read the book and understand the argument. A subject reveals to you in fuller measure only in the measure your mind dwells on the topic. There are people whose minds constantly contemplate the universe. They find their consciousness constantly turning towards the Omnipresent. The book reveals its inner significance to those whose inner occupation embraces the universe below and the reality above. This is consciousness answering to the aspiring consciousness.
Here Life and Mother are our concerns. We are deeply concerned about bringing Mother to bear upon the secrets of Life and change it at its roots drastically, so that the force of life that is constituted to yield movement and action will be made to yield fulfilment and happiness against its grain. For us to achieve that result, the minimum requirement must be our consciousness constantly dwelling on Mother as well as on the secrets of life.
Another method to give a full opening of our being for Mother to enter and perform Her miracles is to take Mother's words as literally true, not a figurative statement or philosophic advice. Sri Aurobindo says to act as if Mother is watching you, because SHE IS watching you. An old man was in good health and was going for ocean swimming. He is so healthy that at the age past 80 he runs. One day when he started for swimming, he had an uneasy feeling that something catastrophic might happen. The thought came to him a few times, but he brushed it aside as silly. As he was about to leave his room, he saw the hand of Sri Aurobindo barring him from leaving. He stayed back. Mother literally watches you. If you want to see them watching you, develop a deep emotion inside that is constant. Then they will reveal to you. Every statement of Mother taken literally will open a door. The faith that their words are true gives the opening in the soul which sees.
A man, for what reasons god knows, gave away his properties to an unknown person. For some time things were under a kind of cover. Later the usurper asserted his newly acquired rights and tried to physically possess the property. The wronged man addressed Mother in prayer. He never disclosed what really happened. What was in his mind was not known to the closest well wisher. More than one person offered to help. Things fell into place as if by a miracle. Information, advice, police help, legal help, human assistance came to the surface, as if the entire world is willing to help this man out of his predicament. Strangely the man refused to avail of anyone of the helps offered. After some time, the wrong doer succeeded in his intentions and plans. Again the man goes around repeating his old story. Man is capable of all follies. Mother comes to help in an impossible situation from more than one side. Secretive behaviour, hiding facts from those who are helpful, refusal to avail of help are human behaviour that runs away from Grace. Sri Aurobindo says about such behaviour: "There is no use blaming Grace. You have to blame yourself."
Many devotees offer manual service at Mother's Centers and receive Grace through that. At least one unemployed youth having done such service rose to the top of professions. Grace comes to all, but it comes according to the opening in the devotee. The opening, among other things, is determined by the attitude. It appears that it is not so much the service as the attitude with which service is offered. Someone was in great distress over a lost property, given up as lost. He was in dire poverty too. He took to Mother and on an occasion he was present in a place that demanded manual service. No participant was inclined to help. He offered to help and helped for a few days. Circumstances over his property changed and what was given up came to his hand. As the rights were conceded, there was a big relief. Also, by a sudden turn of events regular monthly income appeared on the horizon and became a reality. Immediate substantial relief and rights came in return of a manual service voluntarily offered and willingly executed. In each act there is scope for us to do more. Our readiness to avail of it opens up limitless reservoirs of Grace.
There are families where everyone is devoted to Mother. This is not often the case. But wherever this fortunate circumstance exists, one can turn it into Mother's Family, a family which as a whole lives according to Mother's ways of life. If the goal is achieved by the entire family, it becomes yoga for all or at least yogic life. To start with one should initiate.
He who initiates must know he is launching on a path of complete self sacrifice. This is a way by which one refuses to live for himself and vows to live for others and only others. The sadhak tries to identify himself with Mother and that is yoga. He who has taken to yoga has no right to interest himself in another man. That is described by Sri Aurobindo as self-regarding ego. One expresses an egoistic preference for another and that is prohibited. Here we talk of family life and living for the family, a human ideal, not a yogic ideal. To identify with man is more difficult than identifying with the Divine, if you want to do it in the yogic way. One identifying himself with another is vital attachment getting completed. One identifying with another with the Divine in the other is to know the Cosmic Divine in the other man. In yogic terminology this is to have the vision of the Universal Divine. If the human way is vital attachment and the yogic method is the lofty universal ideal, is there not something accessible to us at the level of yogic life? There is. It is to be more than human and less than divine. The principle is to consider the members of the family as children of Mother and humanly endeavour to rise to Mother's expectations in our relationship with them. In practice this will end up in pampering everyone in the extreme to the point of others thinking we are foolish. As long as we do it from the Mother in us and do it only for Her sake and not out of egoistic greatness, things will be under control and proceed on the right lines. But the social ridicule is inescapable. Following all the rules of Mother within the family like "think from another's point of view, do not complain, speak to them after consecration", one will find the atmosphere of the family changing for the better. If more members join it is welcome. When all members of the family join the effort, Mother's Fulfilment can be seen in the entire family.
Identification with the family is possible for many. A wife said she would feel something was wrong with the husband when he cut himself while he was sawing. This is vital identification of the wife with the husband. Rare individuals identify themselves with a national cause or with a religious mission. Those who identify themselves with work turn it into service. Identification in affection, love, sympathy creates a close-knit family. Above all these known identifications is the disciple's identification with the guru to share his punya. The guru dissolves the sishya's sins. This is what obtains in the world.
The identification we speak of now is identification with the Mother in the other person. In the ordinary identification, each shares the others' good as well as bad aspects. Because here the identification is of the Mother in you with the Mother in the other, both people lose their weaknesses and the strength of one fortifies the other. Punyas are united to become stronger and sins are dissolved. Though this is based on a yogic principle of the universal divine in man, the aim is not yogic. In practice it will not be a group of sadhaks but a family united with each other in Mother.
As the individual is capable of greater loyalty to the family than for humanity or divinity, for certain individuals this may be more intense than yoga, the reason being this more certainly stirs his emotions than the yogic ideal.
In each person, or at least most men, there is an element of stubbornness that insists on ignorances. This is to become a slave to stupidity. Stated this way, it looks obvious. One who insists on foolish things, really insists on his ego in the context of his stupidity. People of low education, birth or income consider themselves low and develop an inferiority complex. This is only socially true. If one accepts this, then for him the ultimate is society, which is not true. If low education is low, then high education is high. Again, education becomes the ultimate, which is not true. You must realise that the highest education or high birth or wealth you may happen to have is of no value. You must readily grant that another's low education does not render him low. In daily practice, this is next to impossible. How can a Ph.D. feel his education is valueless? How can a brahmin feel that his birth is of no consequence? How can a millionaire tell his own conscience that all his money is beside the point? What values them is the the vital ego, the social ego, and the psychological ego. We certainly have no use for all these egos. These attitudes, however real they are, will effectively stand in the way of Mother's Fulfilment. As an experiment, a man who seeks Mother's Fulfilment in any line of activity can try to accomplish it in a context where his value is known to those around. He can also try the same in another context where it is not known. The difference will be clear. Having removed the outer part, a striking difference is felt. Let him again try to remove the inner part and then try the experiment again. Then, he will know the value of losing these attitudes.
Ten or fifteen years after coming to Mother, if one examines himself closely to see how far he has tried to fit Mother into his own culture, his family tradition, his orthodoxy or better still into his own personality, people can make a great discovery. They would know tradition prevails and Mother succumbs. As our tradition is deep seated in us, in one way or another we come to convince ourselves "After all, this is what I was taught".
No country rose to greater heights in Empire building than England. Their patriotism is unexcelled to this day. When an English gentleman is dealt with, it is impossible to find where he is offended and how deeply. Even when they deeply disapprove, they are charming in their dealings with the person with whom they disapprove. England, a country that has gone to the pinnacles of glory, patriotism and culture, Mother has prophesied at the beginning of this century, would go under the sea. Later geologists have said that too. Any high achievement of a period turns into deadwood in the subsequent period, which ensures death. Tradition, orthodoxy, culture or any superiority achieved leaves around it a substantial gap which is untouched by that superiority. Like the subsequent generations of a wealthy pioneer who spend their monies in revelry, luxury and dissipation, descendants of a culturally superior race or caste accumulate organised falsehood, incurable evils, unbending inflexibility and all versions of evil. With the passing of time, this becomes worse, necessitating the entire nation going under water. This is true of every single past superiority. At our own levels, we can discern a hundred little symptoms of these evils. We must be willing to locate them and remove them. Poet Nakkeeran proudly spoke back to Lord Shiva under the plea that truth is paramount. To this day we hear that tone in every one of us, perhaps, in a stronger measure. If that is our inheritance, our endeavour is to acquire humility in our personal life. Instead of remembering our ancient pride, we must locate in ourselves the points of behaviour that have come down to us that are to be weeded out. Every strong point will have its accompanying weak point. Meticulously we should cull all of them out to be thrown away. The urban man will have plenty of scope to lie with the rural client. The parent is in a position of authority and children believe the parents. What a scope opens for the parents to be stupid or false. The professionals have a great scope to lie to their clients in view of their ignorance. How much we are endowed with such a behaviour? Are we willing to shed them all completely?
Take one small habit of telling your children or wife tales about your late coming. It is trivial in appearance. Decide to be 100% truthful. You won't find it easy. Unless you give up your habits, your enjoying gossiping with friends or any other way in which the time is spent, you cannot be truthful here. It requires a change of the man. When you do make that change, you will find your nerves fresh as never before. That will be a change which will bring about a revolution in your character and being. Mother will be able to act more fully than before. Suppose you carry this experiment in more serious behaviour and get the freedom from vitiating habits, what will be the position? The freedom of mind, the freedom in the nerves must be experienced to be understood. A successful small experiment will show the character of freedom. From there the MIND should understand what extent of freedom awaits when one is free of his own character. One is free to progress as far as he can.
Fitting Mother into our own habits is worse than not worshipping Mother. But that tendency is all pervasive. Whenever an old habit comes, however sacred it is, Mother quits the place, because for Mother what SHE said last year, if followed now, will prevent Her consciousness. Mother is an ever fresh consciousness, to which yesterday is dead past. How then can we follow Her in terms of ages past? Tradition might have been great. It is not Tanjore and Tinnelvely districts, with ancient tradition, that are industrially advanced today. Coimbatore, a dry backward district, is foremost in India agriculturally and industrially. Tradition is a bar and is to be thrown out of the windows.
If one takes stock after years of coming to Mother as to how much he has changed according to Mother and how much he has tried to fit Mother into his scheme, it will be educative.
For Mother's Fulfilment to enter our lives, what we do, what we accept, what we believe, etc. must be full of life. Nothing that is dead can be of use. What matters is content and not form. We must focus on the ever-living present, forget the past and never think of the future. Right is the only thing admissible, never wrong. Good of all description is welcome, whereas evil of any shade, however thin is to be discarded. Our consideration is of the whole issue, not a part. Of the 25 or 30 faculties we have, only the right side matters, not the wrong side. We seek Mother in life, not life for its own sake. Against darkness we accept light. We prefer the eternal to the individual, divine love against human love, freedom instead of law, the infinite against the limited finite, immortality against mortality, peace against tension, health against disease, success against failure, flexibility instead of rigidity, evolution against life, consciousness against unconsciousness, fulfilment against satisfaction, spontaneity against flatness.
These are high sounding principles fit for the classroom and the platform, not practicable in a work-a-day world -- is what one thinks. It is not so. It is for us to bring down this principle to bear upon the daily small activities. The child that takes the father's help to write an essay has two choices. The father can help the child write it by her own efforts or he can write it himself for her. This is a crucial choice. The child that wishes to write on his own with the father's help takes the content of help and not the form. When a bottle is dropped and broken, the lady of the house screaming at the servant and asking the servant to pay for it may be within her rights, but that is to be on the side of authority. Instead if she understands how the lack of skill of the servant led to the breaking of the bottle and takes pains to teach the servant the missing skill, not only the servant becomes a better one, but the lady's personality improves a shade better for her effort. That way she chooses to act out of freedom and not authority. A girl was wearing a new pretty dress and raised the brows of other children, while one girl went to her and said how nice the new dress looked on her. Instead of being jealous like others, one girl took the psychological effort to be generous, which makes both feel better. Every occasion in life is an occasion to change our inner feelings and bring us closer to Mother. It is a psychological effort all along. Such an effort accepted as a way of life helps Mother fulfil Herself in our life.
Man works hard for survival, comfort, security and finally enjoyment. Survival is for the present, security is for old age. Having drudged in the beginning, he learns to avoid drudgery and seek comfort. When he has arrived, he begins to enjoy in leisure and security the fruits of his labour. The impatient man starts his enjoyment in the middle of the process and thus hampers everything. He who starts the enjoyment earlier ruins his future and ensures permanent suffering. This is the rule for the whole life, but it figures in several ways and at several stages. He who starts a project must be work oriented. Insisting on an air conditioned room for himself before the project building is put up, he will ensure the building is not complete. His project will be a non-starter. Common sense tells us what comes in the end and what should proceed. Reversing the order is to kill the effort.
As the timing of the enjoyment is a determinant of your success, so the level of enjoyment is a determinant of your level of progress. The higher the level of progress, the higher is the level of enjoyment. So, one way of progress is to raise one step the level of enjoyment you are used to. To give a psychological example, the selfish man enjoys taking, whereas the selfless man enjoys giving. The selfish man changing his enjoyment from taking to giving makes a psychological progress. To give a very simple example of an 18 year old boy fond of reading stories, instead of reading novels of low standards, if he endeavours to read novels of better standards, enjoyment continues but at a higher level, thereby making him a better personality. To look at every work of our daily life and recast it according to the principle of a higher level of enjoyment is not only a path to progress but a way by which we let Mother in a greater measure into our lives.
For every type of progress, there is a sign that indicates it. For every level of progress, there is a symptom that confirms it. To know whether one is on the side of life or on the side of spirit, some signs and symptoms are there.
For us who are used to big and small, suddenly if the difference is not intensely felt, when we are able to feel an ordinary man and a VIP the same or able to cook for our children with the same earnestness we show for a VIP dinner, we can understand the mind is touched by the spiritual influence. In a spiritually exalted mood if one finds drinking a mouthful of water as sweet as drinking nectar, his vital is under the influence of the spirit. For one to whom the very thought of death is frightening, if suddenly death loses its terror, it is a sign of the body coming under the spiritual power. When a long day of work does not tire, you know the energies are spiritually motivated. Reading HIS books or meditating or contemplating, if one sometimes feels Eternity before him or finds Infinity opening before him, he can know his spirit is astir. Mouth feeling sweet, sound striking the ear with an unfelt sweetness, sight growing one further dimension, touch yielding an inconceivable pleasantness are signs of the psychic exerting an influence on the surface senses. It is also felt as overpowering meditation descending on you by itself. A stranger evoking from you the very same sweet pleasant sensation as the Beloved, the future not weighing down the mind any more, regret of the past vanishing, a sense of responsibility to everyone or everything you are remotely connected with, absence of right or attachment, joy issuing out of the heart without cause are all symptoms of the Spirit.
Janaka lived the life of a king, revelling in luxury but totally unaffected by it. It is to live in life but inwardly detached. Even Narada could not discern the greatness of Janaka. The eye of the Divine sage saw his life and not the detached spirit at work. To such a soul victory in world war is no victory, Nobel prize is no source of pride. To feel a difference between two items is to announce the absence of spirituality. He would not consider even Ph.D. as education. Money will not be considered by him as Jnana. Royal throne will not give him a power that will taint his nerves or excite him. On his own children, he will feel no right.
Most cannot take the complete effort and go the whole hog. Those who in practice want to take a complete effort often commit a folly. An effort is effective only to the extent it is right, informed, organised, enthused and skilled. Capacity to take a greater effort when your resources are limited will be the effort of stupidity, which will lead you to torture. Before deciding to take a complete effort, increase your information, skill, organisation to the level of the effort. That way you will be right. If you cannot do all, at least limit your effort to the level of your other endowments.
What knows is knowledge in the mind. One who knows all his affairs is a capable man. Trying to know more and succeeding leads to wisdom. To be able to know the Divine, one must be able to know the whole universe. Light flooding the entire mind enables one to know the whole world and the universe. He who is able to reach all his work and all his people by his emotions will have an unfailing grip over his affairs. Human emotions can reach human affairs of any extent. To be able to feel the whole world, one needs Divine Love. Human love does not have that reach. Authority is the source of power. To be able to have power over the whole world, one's power should change its character from human to the Divine. As the touch of the Divine generates love in the heart, when the physical body is charged with the Divine Consciousness, Power results and that is a power which can embrace the whole effectively. It is supramental power.
Rama is an avatar of the higher mind. To destroy evil, he carried arms, went to the battlefield, led the army and fought Ravana. Krishna is an avatar of overmind. To establish Dharma on earth, he went to the battlefield unarmed and led Arjuna, the human instrument, to victory over Duryodhana. Sri Aurobindo, the Supramental Avatar, remained in his room, fought the world war, called it Mother's war, sent his spiritual forces to Churchill, covered Dunkirk with a mysterious fog and destroyed Hitler, the Lord of Nations. To know, to feel, to have power over one's own little world of human affairs, all that one should do is to let Mother into his life.
Mind, senses, parts of the being, consciousness are aspects of the being. Mind is the part that is capable of cognition. Senses are there to receive information from the environment and inform the mind. The four parts of the being are soul, mind, vital and body. All that is aware in us is conscious and is made of consciousness. What is there below the consciousness is subconscious. The body is subconscious, whereas mind and vital are conscious. The part that is below the mind is subliminal, where the psychic being dwells. Senses are of the vital, which feed the mind with messages from the outside world. Man crossing into the subliminal meets with the psychic being lodged there. He who puts off all the senses and crosses the mind or any one part of the being meets with the Spirit, the Purusha. Light from above descending into the subconscious makes the Supramental Consciousness possible.
Following the rules of psychic education in one single act, the devotee turns that act into an act of the psychic. Brushing aside the senses and the part of the being through which an act is done, the act becomes spiritual. By consecration of the physical sensations which an act raises, the act is informed by Mother's consciousness which is supramental consciousness. To let Mother initiate and execute an act inside or outside us, the act rises to supramental levels because Mother's consciousness is supramental consciousness. In this essay I call that Mother's Fulfilment.
Good will of the heart expresses itself as beauty in the face. By increasing the good will inside, ones facial expressions gain in beauty. Constant remembrance of the Divine gives the face a graceful look. Constant remembrance of Mother makes the face graceful and charming.
Small positive acts ripen into good fortune. Small negative acts similarly bring in misfortune. We must learn to avoid the negative acts and never miss the positive acts.
If you take up a discipline and for that sake refuse a desire, SHE takes you through the shortest route to the goal, whereas if you take up a discipline and still have an eye on a desire, Mother fulfils the desire and brings you to the goal through a long route. In small matters like whether you can clean your table today or postpone, you can see Mother acting in this fashion. Suppose you clean as and when it is to be cleaned, the goal you have in mind becomes fulfilled sooner than expected. If you are lazy, Mother arranges someone to clean your table, which pleases you, and the goal is reached later.
At whatever level you seek realisation of yogic life, at that level you must be able to see the errors and sins as right and punya. In the measure lapses irk you, realisation will be postponed.
Mother grants you fulfilment of a desire, because you still cling to it. You seek out desire, because you are taking initiative to fulfil your desire. The difference between the two must be clear. Mistaking the latter as the former will lead to catastrophe. You must work out a capsule of conduct suited to your yoga. If my mother is selfish, grandfather is mercenary, I must now look for those qualities in me. Overlooking them will delay realisation. No fulfilment of Mother will enter into my life till I locate them and weed them out.
All high principles, strategies, procedures, clues, hints of yoga have their localised versions in our daily life. To be able to know them in this small context, and practise them is to induct Mother's Fulfilment into our domestic life. Because all life is yoga, life at any level can be practised as yoga. Therefore to study every little activity of ours in the context of our character and as a field of expression of Mother's principles is the work we have to do for ourselves.
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Comments
66-rules results in
66-rules results in elevation-rules result in elevation
89-into body, vital and mind each -into body, vital and mind, each
189-frowns on fresh initiative-frowns on fresh initiatives
213-dictum is destined to be an also ran-not sure what's the author's interpretation here
604-a unattainably high-an unattainably high
626-1ocalised -localised
607-one is born in are there for them as wealth is there for rich children-one is born in are there for them, as wealth is there for rich children
755-This is what obtains in the world-Is this correct?
855-and security the fruits of his labour-and secure the fruits of his labour