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MAY 1997 All India Magazine: A monthly magazine of Sri Aurobindo society. / Editor: K.C. Anand; Published by Pradeep Narang for Sri Aurobindo Society and Printed by A.R. Ganguli at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press; Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust.- Pondicherry [India]. - Volume XXVI, No 10. |
| IN THIS ISSUE SIGNIFICANCE OF PRAYERS |
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This year is consecrated to Sri Aurobindo.
To understand his teaching better and try to
put it into practice, is certainly the best way of
showing our gratitude to him for all the light,
knowledge and force which he has so generously
brought to the earth.
May his teaching enlighten and guide us, and
what we cannot do today, we shall do tomorrow.
- THE MOTHER
Ocean Oneness
Silence is round me, wideness ineffable;
White birds on the ocean diving and wandering;
A soundless sea on a voiceless heaven,
Azure on azure, is mutely gazing.
Identified with silence and boundlessness
My spirit widens clasping the universe
Till all that seemed becomes the Real,
One in a mighty and single vastness.
Someone broods there nameless and bodiless,
Conscious and lonely, deathless and infinite,
And, sole in a still eternal rapture,
Gathers all things to his heart for ever.
SRI AUROBINDO
CONTENTS
SECTION I: THE SUNLIT WAY Power and Significance of Prayer Player and the Divine Glace Prayer and Determinism Condition for the Success of a Prayer SECTION II: ESSAYS DIVINE Answer to the Fundamental Questions Yasmin Vijnate Sarvam Vijnatam SECTION Ill: EXALTING STORIES Patience and Perseverance SECTION IV: QUESTIONS & ANSWERS Some Explanations FLOWER ON THE COVER - "PRAYER" (Spiritual name given by the Mother to Zephyranthes - Fairy Lily)
SRI AUROBINDO Power and Significance of Prayer
The life of man is a life of wants and needs
and therefore of desires, not only in his physical
and vital, but in his mental and spiritual being.
When he becomes conscious of a greater Power
governing the world, he approaches it through
prayer for the fulfilment of his needs, for help
in his rough journey, for protection and aid in
his struggle. Whatever crudities there may be in
the ordinary religious approach to God by prayer,
and there are many, especially that attitude which
imagines the Divine as if capable of being
propitiated, bribed, flattered into acquiescence
or indulgence by praise, entreaty and gifts and
has often little regard to the spirit in which he
is approached, still this way of turning to the
Divine is an essential movement of our religious
being and reposes on a universal truth.
The efficacy of prayer is often doubted and
prayer itself supposed to be a thing irrational
and necessarily superfluous and ineffective. It is
true that the universal will executes always its
aim and cannot be deflected by egoistic
propitiation and entreaty, it is true of the
Transcendent who expresses himself in the
universal order that, being omniscient, his larger
knowledge must foresee the thing to be done and it
does not need direction or stimulation by human
thought and that the individual's desires are not
and cannot be in any world-order the true
determining factor. But neither is that order or
the execution of the universal will altogether
effected by mechanical Law, but by powers and
forces of which for human life at least, human
will, aspiration and faith are not among the least
important. Prayer is only a particular form given
to that will, aspiration and faith. Its forms are
very often crude and not only childlike, which is
in itself no defect, but childish; but still it
has a real power and significance. Its power and
sense is to put the will, aspiration and faith of
man into touch with the divine Will as that of a
conscious Being with whom we can enter into
conscious and living relations. For our will and
aspiration can act either by our own strength and
endeavour, which can no doubt be made a thing
great and effective whether for lower or higher
purposes, - and there are plenty of disciplines
which put it forward as the one force to be used,
- or it can act in dependence upon and with
subordination to the divine or the universal Will.
And this latter way, again, may either look upon
that Will as responsive indeed to our aspiration,
but almost mechanically, by a sort of law of
energy, or at any rate quite impersonally, or else
it may look upon it as responding consciously to
the divine aspiration and faith of the human soul
and consciously bringing to it the help, the
guidance, the protection and fruition demanded,
.
Prayer helps to prepare this relation for us
at first on the lower plane even while it is there
consistent with much that is mere egoism and
self-delusion; but afterwards we can draw towards
the spiritual truth which is behind it. It is not
then the giving of the thing asked for that
matters, but the relation itself, the contact of
man's life with God, the conscious interchange. In
spiritual matters and in the seeking of spiritual
gains, this conscious relation is a great power;
it is a much greater power than our own entirely
self-reliant struggle and effort and it brings a
fuller spiritual growth and experience.
Necessarily, in the end prayer either ceases in
the greater thing for which it prepared us, - in
fact the form we call prayer is not itself
essential so long as the faith, the will, the
aspiration are there, - or remains only for the
joy of the relation. Also its objects, the 
or interest it seeks to realise, become higher and
higher until we reach the highest motiveless
devotion, which is that of divine love pure and
simple without any other demand or longing.
The relation, which arise out of this attitude
towards the Divine, are that of the divine Father
and the Mother with the child and that of the
divine Friend. To the Divine as these things the
human soul comes for help, for protection, for
guidance, for fruition, - or if knowledge be the
aim, to the Guide, Teacher, Giver of light, for
the Divine is the Sun of knowledge, - or it comes
in pain and suffering for relief and solace and
deliverance, it may be deliverance either from the
suffering itself or from the world-existence which
is the habitat of the suffering or from all its
inner and real causes.1 In these things we find
there is a certain gradation. For the relation of
fatherhood is always less close, intense,
passionate, intimate, and therefore it is less
resorted to in the Yoga which seeks for the
closest union. That of the divine Friend is a
thing sweeter and more intimate, admits of an
equality and intimacy even in inequality and the
beginning of mutual self-giving; at its closest
when all idea of other giving and taking
disappears, when this relation becomes motiveless
except for the one sole all-sufficing motive of
love, it turns into the free and happy relation of
the playmate in the Lila of existence. But closer
and more intimate still is the relation of the
Mother and the child, and that therefore plays a
very large part wherever the religious impulse is
most richly fervent and springs most warmly from
the heart of man. The soul goes to the Mother-Soul
in all its desires and troubles, and the Divine
Mother wishes that it should be so, so that she
may pour out her heart of love. It turns to her
too because of the self-existent nature of this
love and because that points us to the home
towards which we turn from our wanderings in the
world and to the bosom in which we find our rest.
But the highest and the greatest relation is that
which starts from none of the ordinary religious
motives, but is rather of the very essence of
Yoga, springs from the very nature of love itself;
it is the passion of the Lover and the Beloved.
Wherever there is the desire of the soul for its
utter union with God, this form of the divine
yearning makes its way....
When one has the vision in the heart, everything,
Nature and Thought and Action, ideas and
occupations and tastes and objects become the
Beloved and are a source of ecstasy.
Sri Aurobindo
Prayer and the Divine Grace Words of the Mother
Sweet Mother, if one needs something for example, one wants to know something or one needs guidance, or something else, how can one have it from the Divine, according to one's need?
By asking the Divine for it. If you do not ask
Him, how can you have it?
If you turn to the Divine and have full trust
and ask Him, you will get what you need - not
necessarily what you imagine you need; but the
true thing you need, you will get. But you must
ask Him for it.
You must make the experiment sincerely; you
must not endeavour to get it by all sorts of
external means and then expect the Divine to give
it to you, without even having asked Him. Indeed,
when you want somebody to give you something, you
ask him for it, don't you? And why do you expect
the Divine to give it to you without your having
asked Him for it?
In the ordinary consciousness the movement is
just the opposite. You assume something, saying,
"I need this, I need this relationship, I need
this affection, I need this knowledge, etc. Well,
the Divine ought to give it to me, otherwise He is
not the Divine." That is to say, you reverse the
problem completely.
First of all, you say, "I need." Do you know
whether you truly need it or whether it is only an
impression you have or a desire or quite an
ignorant movement? First point: you know nothing
about it.
Second point: it is precisely your own will
you want to impose upon the Divine, telling Him,
"I need this." And then you don't even ask Him for
it: "Give it to me." You say, "I need it.
Therefore, since I need it, it must come to me,
quite naturally, spontaneously; it's the Divine's
job to give me all that I need."
But if it so happens that truly you don't know
what you need and it is merely an illusion and not
a truth and that, into the bargain, you ask it
from life around you and don't turn to the Divine,
don't create any relationship between yourself and
Him, don't think of Him or turn to Him with at
least some sincerity in your attitude, then, as
you ask nothing from Him, there is no reason for
Him to give you anything.
But if you ask Him, as He is the Divine He
knows a little better than you what you need; He
will give you what you need.
Or else, if you insist and want to impose your
own will, He may give you what you want in order
to enlighten you and make you conscious of your
mistake, that it was truly not the thing you
needed. And then you begin to protest - I don't
mean you personally, I am speaking of all human
beings - and you say, "Why has the Divine given me
something which harms me?" - completely forgetting
that it was you who asked for it! In both cases
you protest all the same. If He gives you what you
ask and then that brings you more harm than good,
you protest. And again, if He doesn't give it, you
also protest: "What! I told Him I needed it and He
doesn't give it to me."
In both cases you protest, and the poor Divine
is accused.
Only, if instead of all that, you simply have
an aspiration within you, an urge, an intense
ardent need to find That, which you conceive more
or less clearly to be the Truth of your being, the
Source of all things, the supreme Good, the Answer
to all we desire, the Solution to all problems; if
there is this intense need in you and you aspire
to realise it, you won't any longer say to the
Divine, "Give me this, give me that", or, "I need
this, I must have that." You will tell Him, "Do
what is necessary for me and lead me to the Truth
of my being. Give me what Thou in Thy supreme
Wisdom seest as the thing I need."
And then you are sure of not being mistaken,
and He will not give you something which harms
you.
There is a still higher step, but it's a
little more difficult to begin with that.
But the first one is already a much truer
approach than that of telling the Divine, "I need
this. Give it to me." For indeed, very few people
really know what they need - very few. And the
proof of it is that they are always in pursuit of
the fulfilment of their desires, all their effort
is bent upon that, and each time one of their
desires is fulfilled, they are disappointed. And
they pass on to another.
And after much seeking, making many mistakes,
suffering a good deal and being very disappointed,
then, sometimes, one begins to grow wise and
wonders if there isn't a way out of all this, that
is to say, a way to come out of one's own
ignorance.
And it is then, at that moment that one can do
this (Mother opens her arms): "Here I am, take me
and lead me along the true path."
Then all begins to go well.
*
...if one has ... trust in the divine Grace, if
one has the faith that there is something in the
world like the divine Grace, and that this
something can answer a prayer, an aspiration, an
invocation, then, after making one's mental
formation, if one offers it to the Grace and puts
one's trust in it, asks it to intervene and has
the faith that it will intervene, then indeed one
has a chance of success.
Try, and you will surely see the result.
But, Mother, when one prays sincerely for the
intervention of the Grace, doesn't one expect a
particular result?
Excuse me, that depends on the tenor of the prayer. If one simply invokes the Grace or the Divine, and puts oneself in His hands, one does not expect a particular result. To expect a particular result one must formulate one's prayer, must ask for something. If you have only a great aspiration for the divine Grace and evoke it, implore it, without asking it for anything precise, it is the Grace which will choose what it will do for you, not you.
That is better, isn't it?
Ah! that's quite another question.
Why, it is higher in its quality, perhaps. But
still, if one wants something precise, it is
better to formulate it. If one has a special
reason for invoking the Grace, it is better to
formulate it precisely and clearly.
Of course, if one is in a state of complete
surrender and gives oneself entirely, if one
simply offers oneself to the Grace and lets it do
what it likes, that is very good. But after that
one must not question what it does! One must not
say to it, "Oh! I did that with the idea of having
this", for if one really has the idea of obtaining
something, it is better to formulate it in all
sincerity, simply, just as one sees it.
Afterwards, it is for the Grace to choose if it
will do it or not; but in any case, one will have
formulated clearly what one wanted. And there is
no harm in that.
Where it becomes bad is when the request is
not granted and one revolts. Then naturally it
becomes bad. It is at that moment one must
understand that the desire one has, or the
aspiration, may not have been very enlightened and
that perhaps one has asked for something which was
not exactly what was good for one. Then at that
moment one must be wise and say simply, "Well, let
Thy Will be done." But so long as one has an inner
perception and an inner preference, there is no
harm in formulating it. It is a very natural
movement.
For example, if one has been foolish or has
made a mistake and one truly, sincerely wishes
never to do it again, well, I don't see any harm
in asking for it. And in fact, if one asks for it
with sincerity, a true inner sincerity, there is a
great chance that it will be granted.
You must not think that the Divine likes to
contradict you. He is not at all keen on doing it!
He can see better than you what is really good for
you; but it is only when it is absolutely
indispensable that He opposes your aspiration.
Otherwise He is always ready to give what you ask.
Prayer and Determinism Words of the Mother
Up there is the domain of absolute freedom.... Who
tells you that a sufficiently sincere aspiration,
a sufficiently intense prayer is not capable of
changing the path of the unrolling ?
This means that all is possible.
Now, one must have a sufficient aspiration and
a prayer that's sufficiently intense. But that has
been given to human nature. It is one of the
marvellous gifts of grace given to human nature;
only, one does not know how to make use of it.
This comes to saying that in spite of the most
absolute determinisms in the horizontal line, if
one knows how to cross all these horizontal lines
and reach the highest Point of consciousness, one
is able to make things change, things apparently
absolutely determined. So you may call it by any
name you like, but it is a kind of combination of
an absolute determinism with an absolute freedom.
You may pull yourself out of it in any way you
like, but it is like that....
When you say "determinism" and when you say
"freedom", you say only words and all that is only
a very incomplete, very approximate and very weak
description of what is in reality within you,
around you and everywhere; and to be able to begin
to understand what the universe is, you must come
out of your mental formulas, otherwise you will
never understand anything.
To tell the truth, if you live only a moment,
just a tiny moment, of this absolutely sincere
aspiration or this sufficiently intense prayer,
you will know more things than by meditating for
hours.
Q: You have said here that we are "tied to the chain of Kama", but then sometimes when the Divine Grace acts, that contradicts...
Completely, the Divine Grace completely
contradicts Karma; you know. It makes it melt away
like butter that's put in the sun.
That is what I was saying just now.... There
you are, if you have an aspiration that's sincere
enough or a prayer that's intense enough, you can
bring down in you Something that will change
everything, everything - truly it changes
everything. An example may be given that is
extremely limited, very small, but which makes you
understand things very well: a stone falls quite
mechanically; say, a tile falls; if it gets loose,
it will fall, won't it? But if there comes, for
example, a vital or mental determinism from
someone who passes by and does not want it to fall
and puts his hand out, it will fall on his hand,
but it will not fall on the ground. So he has
changed the destiny of this stone or tile. It is
another determinism that has come in, and instead
of the stone falling on the head of someone, it
falls upon the hand and it will not kill anybody.
This is an intervention from another plane, from a
conscious will that enters into the more or less
unconscious mechanism....
The key, as I told you just now, is the
sufficiently sincere aspiration or the
sufficiently intense prayer. I said "or", but I do
not think it is "or". There are people who like
one better and others the other. But in both there
is a magical power, you must know how to make use
of it....
Some dislike prayer; if they entered deep into
their heart, they would find it was pride - worse
than that, vanity. And then there are those who
have no aspiration, they try and they cannot
aspire; it is because they do not have the flame
of the will, it is because they do not have the
flame of humility.
Both are needed. There must be a very great
humility and a very great will to change one's
Karma.
*
...need for miracles must be changed into a
conscious aspiration for something - which is
already there, which exists - which will be
manifested fry the help of all these aspirations;
all these aspirations are necessary or, if one
looks at it in a truer way, they are an
accompaniment - an agreeable accompaniment - in
the eternal unfolding.
Of course, people with a very strict logic
tell you, "Why pray? Why aspire? Why ask? The Lord
does what He wants and He will do what He wants."
It is quite obvious, there is no need to say it,
but this impulse: "O Lord, manifest!" gives a more
intense vibration to His manifestation.
Otherwise, He would never have made the world
as it is. There is a special power, a special
delight, a special vibration in the intensity of
the world's aspiration to become once more what it
is.
And that is why - partly, fragmentarily -
there is an evolution.
An eternally perfect universe, eternally
manifesting the eternal perfection, would lack the
joy of progress.
Condition for the Success of a Prayer Words of the Mother
The most important condition is an almost childlike trust, the candid trust of a child who is sure that it will come, who doesn't even ask himself about it; when he needs something he is sure that it is going to come. Well, it is this, this kind of trust - this indeed is the most important condition. To aspire is indispensable. But some people aspire with such a conflict inside them between faith and absence of faith, trust and distrust, between the optimism which is sure of victory and a pessimism which asks itself when the catastrophe will come. Now if this is in the being, you may aspire but you don't get anything. And you say, "I aspired but didn't get anything." It is because you demolish your aspiration all the time by your lack of confidence. But if you truly have trust... Children when left to themselves and not deformed by older people have such a great trust that all will be well! For example, when they have a small accident, they never think that this is going to be something serious: they are spontaneously convinced that it will soon be over, and this helps so powerfully in putting an end to it. Well, when one aspires for the Force, when one asks the Divine for help, if one asks with the unshakable certitude that it will come, that it is impossible that it won't, then it is sure to come. It is this kind.... yes, this is truly an inner opening, this trustfulness. And some people are constantly in this state. When there is something to be received, they are always there to receive it. There are others, when there is something to have, a force descends, they are always absent, they are always closed at that moment; while those who have this childlike trust are always there at the right time. And it is strange, isn't it, outwardly there is no difference. They may have exactly the same goodwill, the same aspiration, the same wish to do good, but those who have this smiling confidence within them, do not question, do not ask themselves whether they will have it or not have it, whether the Divine will answer or not - the question does not arise, it is something understood... "What I need will be given to me; if I pray I shall have an answer; if I am in a difficulty and ask for help, the help will come - and not only will it come but it will manage everything." If the trust is there, spontaneous, candid, unquestioning, it works better than anything else, and the results are marvellous. It is with the contradictions and doubts of the mind that one spoils everything, with this kind of notion which comes when one is in difficulties: "Oh, it is impossible! I shall never manage it. And if it is going to be aggravated, if this condition I am in, which I don't want, is going to grow still worse, if I continue to slide down farther and farther, if, if, if, if..." like that, and one builds a wall between oneself and the force one wants to receive. The psychic being has this trust, has it wonderfully, without a shadow, without an argument, without a contradiction. And when it is like that, there is not a prayer which does not get an answer, no aspiration which is not realised.
Answer to the Fundamental Questions Words ot Sri Aurobindo
It is not to be denied, no spiritual
experience will deny that this is an unideal and
unsatisfactory world, strongly marked with the
stamp of inadequacy, suffering, evil. Indeed this
perception is in a way the starting-point of the
spiritual urge - except for the few to whom the
greater experience comes spontaneously without
being forced to it by the strong or overwhelming,
the afflicting and detaching sense of the Shadow
overhanging the whole range of this manifested
existence. But still the question remains whether
this is indeed, as is contended, the essential
character of all manifestation or so long at least
as there is a physical world it must be of this
nature, so that the desire of birth, the will to
manifest or create has to be regarded as the
original sin and withdrawal from birth or
manifestation as the sole possible way of
salvation. For those who perceive it so or with
some kindred look - and these have been the
majority - there are well-known ways of issue, a
straightout to spiritual deliverance. But equally
it may not be so but only seem so to our ignorance
or to a partial knowledge - the imperfection, the
evil, the suffering may be a besetting
circumstance or a dolorous passage, but not the
very condition of manifestation, not the very
essence of birth in Nature. And if so, the highest
wisdom will lie not in escape, but in the urge
towards a victory here, in a consenting
association with the Will behind the world, in a
discovery of the spiritual gate to perfection
which will be at the same time an opening for the
entire descent of the Divine Light, Knowledge,
Power, Beatitude.
All spiritual experience affirms that there is
a Permanent above the transience of this
manifested world we live in and this limited
consciousness in whose narrow borders we grope and
struggle and that its characters are infinity,
self-existence, freedom, absolute Light, absolute
Beatitude. Is there then an unbridgeable gulf
between that which is beyond and that which is
here or are they two perpetual opposites and only
by leaving this adventure in Time behind, by
overleaping the gulf can men reach the Eternal?
That is what seems to be at the end of one line of
experience which has been followed to its rigorous
conclusion by Buddhism and a little less
rigorously by a certain type of Monistic
spirituality which admits some connection of the
world with the Divine, but still opposes them in
the last resort to each other as truth and
illusion. But there is also this other and
indubitable experience that the Divine is here in
everything as well as above and behind everything,
that all is in That and is That when we go back
from its appearance to its Reality. It is a
significant and illumining fact that the Knower of
Brahman even moving and acting in this world, even
bearing all its shocks, can live in some absolute
peace, light and beatitude of the Divine. There is
then here something other than that mere trenchant
opposition - there is a mystery, a problem which
one would think must admit of some less desperate
solution. This spiritual possibility points beyond
itself and brings a ray of hope into the darkness
of our fallen existence.
And at once a first question arises - is this
world an unchanging succession of the same
phenomena always or is there in it an evolutionary
urge, an evolutionary fact, a ladder of ascension
somewhere from an original apparent Inconscience
to a more and more developed consciousness, from
each development still ascending, emerging on
highest heights not yet within our normal reach?
If so, what is the sense, the fundamental
principle, the logical issue of that progression?
Everything seems to point to such a progression as
a fact - to a spiritual and not merely a physical
evolution. Here too there is a justifying line of
spiritual experience in which we discover that the
Inconscient from which all starts is apparent
only, for in it there is an involved Consciousness
with endless possibilities, a consciousness not
limited but cosmic and infinite, a concealed and
self- imprisoned Divine, imprisoned in Matter but
with every potentiality held in its secret depths.
Out of this apparent Inconscience each
potentiality is revealed in its turn, first
organised Matter concealing the indwelling Spirit,
then Life emerging in the plant and associated in
the animal with a growing Mind, then Mind itself
evolved and organised in Man. This evolution, this
spiritual progression - does it stop short here in
the imperfect mental being called Man ? Or is the
secret of it simply a succession of rebirths whose
only purpose of issue is to labour towards the
point at which it can learn its own futility,
renounce itself and take its leap into some
original unborn Existence or Non-Existence? There
is at least the possibility, there comes at a
certain point the certitude, that there is a far
greater consciousness than what we call Mind, and
that by ascending the ladder still farther we can
find a point at which the hold of the material
Inconscience, the vital and mental Ignorance
ceases; a principle of consciousness becomes
capable of manifestation which liberates not
partially, not imperfectly, but radically and
wholly this imprisoned Divine. In this vision each
stage of evolution appears as due to the descent
of a higher and higher Power of consciousness,
raising the terrestrial level, creating a new
stratum, but the highest yet remain to descend and
it is by their descent that the riddle of
terrestrial existence will receive its solution
and not only the soul but Nature herself find her
deliverance. This is the Truth which has been seen
in flashes, in more and more entirety of its terms
by the line of seers whom the Tantra would call
the hero-seekers and the divine-seekers and which
may now be nearing the point of readiness for its
full revelation and experience. Then whatever be
the heavy weight of strife and suffering and
darkness in the world, yet if there is this as its
high result awaiting us, all that has gone before
may not be counted too great a price by the strong
and adventurous for the glory that is to come. At
any rate the shadow lifts; there is a Divine Light
that leans over the world and is not only a
far-off incommunicable Lustre.
It is true that the problem still remains why
all this that yet is should have been necessary -
these crude beginnings, this long and stormy
passage - why should the heavy and tedious price
be demanded, why should evil and suffering ever
have been there. For to the how of the fall into
the Ignorance as opposed to the why, the effective
cause, there is a substantial agreement in all
spiritual experience. It is the division, the
separation, the principle of isolation from the
Permanent and One that brought it about; it is
because the ego set up for itself in the world
emphasising its own desire and selfaffirmation in
preference to its unity with the Divine and its
oneness with all; it is because instead of the one
supreme Force, Wisdom, Light determining the
harmony of all forces each Idea, Force, Form of
things was allowed to work itself out as far as it
could in the mass of infinite possibilities by its
separate will and inevitably in the end by
conflict with others. Division, ego, the imperfect
consciousness and groping and struggle of a
separate self-affirmation are the efficient cause
of the suffering and ignorance of this world. Once
consciousnesses separated from the one
consciousness, they fell inevitably into Ignorance
and the last result of Ignorance was Inconscience;
from a dark immense Inconscient this material
world arises and out of it a soul that by
evolution is struggling into consciousness,
attracted towards the hidden Light, ascending but
still blindly towards the lost Divinity from which
it came.
But why should this have happened at all? One
common way of putting the question and answering
it ought to be eliminated from the first, - the
human way and its ethical revolt and reprobation,
its emotional outcry. For it is not, as some
religions suppose, a supra- cosmic, arbitrary,
personal Deity himself altogether uninvolved in
the fall who has imposed evil and suffering on
creatures made capriciously by his fiat. The
Divine we know is an Infinite Being in whose
infinite manifestation these things have come - it
is the Divine itself that is here, behind us,
pervading the manifestation, supporting the world
with its oneness; it is the Divine that is in us
upholding itself the burden of the fall and its
dark consequence. If above It stands for ever in
its perfect Light, Bliss and Peace, It is also
here; its Light, Bliss and Peace are secretly here
supporting all; in ourselves there is a spirit, a
central presence greater than the series of
surface personalities which, like the supreme
Divine itself, is not overborne by the fate they
endure. If we find out this Divine within us, if
we know ourselves as this spirit which is of one
essence and being with the Divine, that is our
gate of deliverance and in it we can remain
ourselves even in the midst of this world's
disharmonies, luminous, blissful and free. That
much is the age-old testimony of spiritual
experience.
But still what is the purpose and origin of
the disharmony - why came this division and ego,
this world of painful evolution? Why must evil and
sorrow enter into the divine Good, Bliss and
Peace? It is hard to answer to the human
intelligence on its own level, for the
consciousness to which the origin of this
phenomenon belongs and to which it stands as it
were automatically justified in a
supra-intellectual knowledge, is a cosmic and not
an individualised human intelligence; it sees in
larger spaces, it has another vision and
cognition, other terms of consciousness than human
reason and feeling. To the human mind one might
answer that while in itself the Infinite might be
free from those perturbations, yet once
manifestation began infinite possibility also
began and among the infinite possibilities which
it is the function of the universal manifestation
to work out, the negation, the apparent effective
negation - with all its consequences - of the
Power, Light, Peace, Bliss was very evidently one.
If it is asked why even if possible it should have
been accepted, the answer nearest to the Cosmic
Truth which the human intelligence can make is
that in the relations or in the transition of the
Divine in the Oneness to the Divine in the Many,
this ominous possible became at a certain point an
inevitable. For once it appears it acquires for
the Soul descending into evolutionary
manifestation an irresistible attraction which
creates the inevitability - an attraction which in
human terms on the terrestrial level might be
interpreted as the call of the unknown, the joy of
danger and difficulty and adventure, the will to
attempt the impossible, to work out the
incalculable, the will to create the new and the
uncreated with one's own self and life as the
material, the fascination of contradictories and
their difficult harmo- nisation - these things
translated into another supra- physical,
superhuman consciousness, higher and wider than
the mental, were the temptation that led to the
fall. For to the original being of light on the
verge of the descent the one thing unknown was the
depths of the abyss, the possibilities of the
Divine in the Ignorance and Inconscience. On the
other side from the Divine Oneness a vast
acquiescence, compassionate, consenting, helpful,
a supreme knowledge that this thing must be, that
having appeared it must be worked out, that its
appearance is in a certain sense part of an
incalculable infinite wisdom, that if the plunge
into Night was inevitable the emergence into a new
unprecedented Day was also a certitude, and that
only so could a certain manifestation of the
Supreme Truth be effected - by a working out with
its phenomenal opposites as the starting-point of
the evolution, as the condition laid down for a
transforming emergence. In this acquiescence was
embraced too the will of the great Sacrifice, the
descent of the Divine itself into the Inconscience
to take up the burden of the Ignorance and its
consequences, to intervene as the Avatar and the
Vibhuti walking between the double sign of the
Cross and the Victory towards the fulfilment and
deliverance. A too imaged rendering of the
inexpressible Truth? But without images how to
present to the intellect a mystery far beyond it?
It is only when one has crossed the barrier of the
limited intelligence and shared in the cosmic
experience and the knowledge which sees things
from identity that the supreme realities which lie
behind these images - images corresponding to the
terrestrial fact - assume their divine forms and
are felt as simple, natural, implied in the
essence of things. It is by entering into that
greater consciousness alone that one can grasp the
inevitability of its self-creation and its
purpose.
This is indeed only the Truth of the
manifestation as it presents itself to the
consciousness when it stands on the border line
between Eternity and the descent into Time where
the relation between the One and the Many in the
evolution is self-determined, a zone where all
that Is to be is implied but not yet in action.
But the liberated consciousness can rise higher
where the problem exists no longer and from there
see it in the light of a supreme identity where
all is predetermined in the automatic
self-existent truth of things and self-justified
to an absolute consciousness and wisdom and
absolute Delight which is behind all creation and
non-creation and the affirmation and negation are
both seen with the eyes of the ineffable Reality
that delivers and reconciles them. But that
knowledge is not expressible to the human mind;
its language of light is too undecipherable, the
light itself too bright for a consciousness
accustomed to the stress and obscurity of the
cosmic riddle and entangled in it to follow the
clue or to grasp its secret. In any case, it is
only when we rise in the spirit beyond the zone of
the darkness and the struggle that we enter into
the full significance of it and there is a
deliverance of the soul from its enigma. To rise
to that height of liberation is the true way out
and the only means of the indubitable knowledge.
But the liberation and transcendence need not
necessarily impose a disappearance, a sheer
dissolving out from the manifestation; it can
prepare a liberation into action of the highest
Knowledge and an intensity of Power that can
transform the world and fulfil the evolutionary
urge. It is an ascent from which there is no
longer a fall but a winged or self-sustained
descent of light, force and Ananda.
It is what is inherent in force of being that
manifests as becoming; but what the manifestation
shall be, its terms, its balance of energies, its
arrangement of principles depends on the
consciousness which acts in the creative force, on
the power of consciousness which Being delivers
from itself for manifestation. It is in the nature
of Being to be able to grade and vary its powers
of consciousness and determine according to the
grade and variation its world or its degree and
scope of self- revelation. The manifested creation
is limited by the power to which it belongs and
sees and lives according to it and can only see
more, live more powerfully, change its world by
opening or moving towards or making descend a
greater power of consciousness that was above it.
This is what is happening in the evolution of
consciousness in our world, a world of inanimate
matter producing under the stress of this
necessity a power of life, a power of mind which
bring into it new forms of creation and still
labouring to produce, to make descend into it some
supramental power. It is further an operation of
creative force which moves between two poles of
consciousness. On one side there is a secret
consciousness within and above which contains in
it all potentialities - there eternally manifest,
here awaiting delivery - of light, peace, power
and bliss. On the other side there is another,
outward on the surface and below, that starts from
the apparent opposite of unconsciousness, inertia,
blind stress, possibility of suffering and grows
by receiving into itself higher and higher powers
which make it always re-create its manifestation
in larger terms, each new creation of this kind
bringing out something of the inner potentiality,
making it more and more possible to bring down the
Perfection that waits above. As long as the
outward personality we call ourselves is centred
in the lower powers of consciousness, the riddle
of its own existence, its purpose, its necessity
is to it an insoluble enigma; if something of the
truth is at all conveyed to this outward mental
man, he but imperfectly grasps it and perhaps
misinterprets and misuses arid mislives It. His
true staff of walking is made more of a fire of
faith than any ascertained and indubitable light
of kr**wledge. It is only by rising toward a
higher consciousness beyond the mental line and
therefore superconscient now to him that he can
emerge from his inability and his ignorance. His
full liberation and enlightenment will come when
he crosses the line into the light of a new
superconscient existence. That is the
transcendence which was the object of aspiration
of the mystics and the spiritual seekers.
But in itself this would change nothing in the
creation here, the evasion of a liberated soul
from the world makes to that world no difference.
But this crossing of the line if turned not only
to an ascending but to a descending purpose would
mean the transformation of the line from what it
now is, a lid, a barrier, into a passage for the
higher powers of consciousness of the Being now
above it. It would mean a new creation on earth, a
bringing in of the ultimate powers which would
reverse the conditions here, in as much as that
would produce a creation raised into the full
flood of spiritual and supramental light in place
of one emerging into a half-light of mind out of a
darkness of material inconscience. It is only in
such a full flood of the realised spirit that the
embodied being could know, in the sense of all
that was involved in it, the meaning and temporary
necessity of his descent into the darkness and its
conditions and at the same time dissolve them by a
luminous transmutation into a manifestation here
of the revealed and no longer of the veiled and
disguised or apparently deformed Divine.
Words of Sri Aurobindo ...[That] which is permanent in the Hindu
religion, must form the basis on which the world
will increasingly take its stand in dealing with
spiritual experience and religious truth.
Hinduism, in my sense of the word, is not modern
Brahmanism. Modern Brahmanism developed into
existence at a definite period in history. It is
now developing out of existence; its mission is
done, its capacities exhausted, the Truth which,
like other religions, it defended, honoured,
preserved, cherished, misused and disfigured, is
about to take to itself new forms and dispense
with all other screens or defender than its own
immortal beauty, grandeur, truth and
effectiveness. It is this unchanging undying Truth
which has to be discovered and placed in its
native light before humanity. 
.
There are many defenders and discoverers of
truth now active among us. They are all busy
defending, modifying, attacking, sapping or
bolstering current Hinduism. I am not eager to
disparage but neither do I find myself satisfied
with any of them. If I were, there would be no
need for any speculation of my own. There are the
orthodox who are busy recovering and applying old
texts or any interpretations, new or old, of these
texts, which will support the existing order, -
and ignoring all that go against it. Their
learning is praise-worthy and useful; it brings to
notice many great and helpful things which were in
danger of being misprized, lost or flung away as
worthless; but they do not seem to me to go to the
heart of the matter. There are the heterodox who
are busy giving new interpretations to old texts
and institutions in order to get rid of all such
features as the modern world finds it hard to
assimilate. Their brain-work can hardly be too
highly praised; it is bringing to light or to a
half light many luminous realities and
possibilities which, if they cannot all be
accepted, yet invigorate and sharpen the habit of
original thinking and help to remove that blind
adherence to traditions which is truth's greatest
obstacle. Still they too do not seem to me to have
the right grasp and discernment. Then there are
the ascetics mystical or rationalistic who call
men to disgust with the world and point to the
temple, the monastery or the mountaintop as the
best, if not the only place for finding God, and
most of whom, in order to honour the Maker slight
and denounce His works. Their position and
temperament is so lofty and noble and their
solvent force on the gross impurities of a
materialised humanity has been so invaluable that
it is with some reluctance one finds oneself
obliged to put them on one side and pass onward.
But it seems to me that we must pass onward if we
would know and possess God in His entirety and not
merely in a side or aspect. There is a story in
the Jewish Scriptures which relates that when God
wished to show himself to Moses, he could only,
owing to the spiritual imperfections of the Jewish
prophet, reveal safely to him His hinder parts.
Moses would have died if he had seen the front of
God; he had not the dharanam, the soul-power to
support that tremendous vision. The story well
illuminates the character of materialism generally
and to its aggressive modern form, European
thought & civilisation, it applies with a quite
overwhelming appositeness. But it seems to me that
the average Vedantist, too, has only seen, for his
part, the crown of the Lord's head and the average
bhakta only the Kaustubh-stone over His heart or
the Srivatsa mark upon it. On the other hand,
there are those rationalists who are by no means
ascetical in their views or temperament and their
name is legion; they insist on our putting
religion and God aside or keeping Him only for
ornamental uses in spare moments, leave that, they
say, & devote yourselves to practical work for
mankind. That rationalism is necessary too if only
to balance the error of the ascetics who would
make of God's world a mistake and of its Maker an
Almighty blunderer or an inscrutable eccentric or
an indefinable Something inhabiting a chaos or a
mirage. Nevertheless, from materialism least of
all, however philanthropic or patriotic, can our
future salvation be expected. Finally, there are
the mystics who are not ascetics, - the
Theosophists. From one point of view I cannot find
praise warm enough to do justice to the work of
Theosophy; from another I cannot find condemnation
strong enough to denounce it. It has forced on the
notice of an unwilling world truths to which
orthodoxy is blind and of which heterodoxy is
afraid or incredulous. It has shown a colossal
courage in facing ridicule, trampling on prejudice
and slander, persisting in faith in spite of
disillusionment, scandal and a continual shifting
of knowledge. They have kept the flag of a past &
future science flying against enormous
difficulties. On the other hand by bringing to the
investigation of that science - not its discovery,
for to the Hindu Yogin it is known already - the
traditional European methods, the methods of the
market-place and the forum, it has brought on the
truths themselves much doubt and discredit, and by
importing into them the forms, jugglery and jargon
of European mystics, their romanticism, their
unbridled imagination, their galloping impatience,
their haste, bragging and loudness, their
susceptibility to dupery, trickery, obstinate
error and greedy selfdeception, Theosophists have
strenghtened doubt and discredit and driven many
an earnest seeker to bewilderment, to angry
suspicion or to final renunciation of the search
for truth. They have scattered the path of the
conscientious investigators, the severe scientists
of Yoga who must appear in the future, with the
thorns and sharp flints of a well-justified
incredulity and suspicion. I admit the truths that
Theosophy seeks to unveil; but I do not think they
can be reached if we fall into bondage even to the
most inspiring table talk of Mahatmas or to the
confused anathemas and vaticinations buried from
their platform tripods by modern Pythonesses of
the type of Mrs. Annie Besant, that great,
capacious but bewildered and darkened intellect,
now stumbling with a loud and confident blindness
through those worlds of twilight and glamour, of
distorted inspirations, perverted communications
and misunderstood or half-understood perceptions
which are so painfully familiar to the student and
seeker.
If these things do not satisfy me, what then
do I seek? I seek a light that shall be new, yet
old, the oldest indeed of all lights. I seek an
authority that accepting, illuminating and
reconciling all human truth, shall yet reject and
get rid of by explaining it all mere human error.
I seek a text and Shastra that is not subject to
interpolation, modification and replacement, that
moth and white ant cannot destroy, that the earth
cannot bury nor Time mutilate. I seek an
asceticism that shall give me purity and
deliverance from self and from ignorance without
stultifying God and His universe. I seek a
scepticism that shall question everything but
shall have the patience to deny nothing that may
possibly be true. I seek a rationalism not
proceeding on the untenable supposition that all
the centuries of man's history except the
nineteenth were centuries of folly and
superstition, but bent on discovering truth
instead of limiting inquiry by a new dogmatism,
obscurantism and furious intolerance which it
chooses to call common sense and enlightenment; I
seek a materialism that shall recognise matter and
use it without being its slave. I seek an
occultism that shall bring out all its processes
and proofs into the light of day, without mystery,
without jugglery, without the old stupid call to
humanity, "Be blind, 0 man, and see!" In short, I
seek not science, not religion, not Theosophy, but
Veda - the truth about Brahman, not only about His
essentiality, but about His manifestation, not a
lamp on the way to the forest, but a light and a
guide to joy and action in the world, the truth
which is beyond opinion, the knowledge which all
thought strives after - yasmin vijnate sarvam
vijnatam. I believe that Veda to be the foundation
of the Sanatan Dharma; I believe it to be the
concealed divinity within Hinduism, - but a veil
has to be drawn aside, a curtain has to be lifted.
I believe it to be knowable and discoverable. I
believe the future of India and the world to
depend on its discovery and on its application,
not to the renunciation of life, but to life in
the world and among men.
In these articles I shall not try to announce
truth, but merely to inquire what are those things
in Hinduism by following which we may arrive at
the truth. I shall try to indicate some of my
reasons - as far as within these limits it can be
done - for my faith in my guides and the manner in
which I think they should be followed. I am
impelled to this labour by the necessity of
turning the mind of young India to our true
riches, our real source of power, purification and
hope for the future and of safeguarding it in the
course of its search both from false lights and
from the raucous challenges and confident
discouragements cast at us by the frail modern
spirit of denial. I write, not for the orthodox,
nor for those who have discovered a new orthodoxy,
Samaj or Panth, nor for the unbeliever; I write
for those who acknowledge reason but do not
identify reason with Western materialism; who are
sceptics but not unbelievers; who, admitting the
claims of modern thought, still believe in India,
her mission and her gospel, her immortal life and
her eternal rebirth.
SECTION III: EXALTING STORIES Patience and Perseverance Words of the Mother
The people of the Punjab have a song which goes like this:
The bulbul does not always sing in the garden,
And the garden is not always in bloom;
Happiness does not always reign,
And friends are not always together.
The conclusion to be drawn from this song is
that we cannot expect to be always happy, and that
to know how to be patient is most useful. For
there are few days in our lives which do not give
us the opportunity to learn greater patience.
You want to see a very busy man to ask him
something. You go to his house. Already many
visitors are there and he keeps you waiting a very
long time before seeing you. You stay there
quietly, perhaps for several hours. You are
patient.
Another home, the person you wish to see is
not at tame when you arrive. You return again the
next day, but his door is still closed. You go
back a third time, but he is sick and cannot see
you. You let a few days go by and then return once
more. And if something new again prevents you from
meeting him, nevertheless you are not discouraged,
but renew the attempt until at last you see him.
This kind of patience is called perseverance.
Perseverance is an active patience, a patience
that marches on.
*
The famous Genoese sailor Columbus set sail
from Spain to cross the unknown seas of the West.
For days and weeks on end, in spite of the
murmurs of his companions, he persisted in his
will to reach a new land; in spite of delays and
difficulties, he would not give up until he had
reached the first American islands. Thus he
discovered the New World.
What did he ask of his companions? He asked
them only to have patience, for they had simply to
rely on him and quietly allow him to lead them.
But what did he himself need to reach his goal ?
He needed the sustained energy and the unremitting
will that we call perseverance.
The celebrated potter, Bernard Palissy, wanted
to recover the lost secret of beautiful old glazed
china enamelled in rich colours.
For months and years on end, he untiringly
pursued his experiments. His attempts to find the
glaze remained fruitless for a long time. He
devoted all he had to his search; and for days and
nights together he watched over the kiln he had
built, endlessly trying out new processes for
preparing and firing his pottery. And not only did
no one give him any help or encouragement, but his
friends and his neighbours called him a madman,
and even his wife reproached him for what he was
doing.
Several times he had to suspend his
experiments for lack of resources, but as soon as
he could, he would take them up again with renewed
courage. Finally one day he did not even have the
wood he needed to stoke his kiln; so, disregarding
the cries and threats of his household, he threw
his own furniture, to the very last stick, into
the fire. And when everything was burnt, he opened
the kiln and found it full of the brightly glazed
pottery which made him famous and which he had
sacrificed so many years to discover.
What was it that his wife and friends lacked
that they could not wait for his hour of success
to come, without harassing him and making his task
more difficult? Simply patience. And what was the
only thing he himself never lacked, the only thing
that never failed him and which enabled him in the
end to triumph over all difficulty and scorn? It
was precisely perseverance, that is to say, the
mightiest force of all.
For nothing in the world can prevail against
perseverance. And even the greatest things are
always an accumulation of small and untiring
efforts.
Enormous boulders have been completely
destroyed, worn by raindrops falling one after
another on the same spot.
A grain of sand is nothing very powerful, but
when many come together, they form a dune and
check the ocean.
And when you learn about natural history, you
will hear how mountains have been formed under the
sea by little animalcules piled one upon another,
who by their persistent efforts have made
magnificent islands and archipelagos rise above
the waves.
Don't you think that your small, repeated
efforts could also achieve great things?
*
The famous sage Shankara whose name brought
glory to the land of Malabar, and who lived about
1200 years ago, had resolved from childhood to
become a Sannyasi.
For a long time his mother, although she
appreciated the nobility of his wish, did not
allow him to devote himself to that way of life.
One day mother and child went to bathe in a
river. Shankara dived in and felt his foot
suddenly seized by a crocodile. Death seemed close
at hand. But even at that dreadful moment the
brave child thought only of his great project and
cried out to his mother, "I am lost! A crocodile
is dragging me down. But let me at least die a
Sannyasi!"
"Yes, yes, my son," his mother sobbed in
despair. Shankara felt such joy that he found the
strength to free his foot and throw himself
ashore.
From that moment he grew in learning as in
years. He became a guru, and remained true to his
great work of teaching philosophy to the very end
of his wonderful life.
*
All who love India know the beautiful poem of
the Mahabharata.
It was written in Sanskrit many hundreds of
years ago. Until recent times, no European could
read it unless he knew Sanskrit, and that was
rare. A translation into one of the European
languages was needed.
Babu Pratap Chandra Rai decided to devote
himself to this work. In his own land he was able
to find a learned friend, Kishori Mohan Ganguly,
who could translate the Sanskrit book into
English, and its hundred parts were published one
by one.
For twelve years Pratap Chandra Rai went on
with the task he had set himself. He devoted all
his resources to the publication of the book. And
when he had nothing left he travelled all over
India to ask help from all who were willing to
give. He received help from princes and peasants,
from scholars and simple folk, from friends in
Europe and America.
In the course of one of his journeys he caught
the pernicious fever from which he died. During
his sickness all his thoughts were turned towards
the completion of his work. And even when it
became painful for him to speak, he would still
say to his wife:
"The book must be finished. Don't spend money
on my funeral rites if it is needed for the
printing. Live as simply as you can so as to save
money for the Mahabharata."
He died full of love for India and her great
poem.
His widow, Sundari Bala Rai, faithfully
carried out his great wish. One year later the
translator completed his work, and the eleven
volumes of the Mahabharata were presented to the
European public who could now know and admire the
eighteen Parvas of the splendid epic poem. And
reading it, they would learn to respect the great
skill and wisdom of the profound thinkers who were
the poets of ancient India.
Such are the fruits borne by the efforts of
all those who, like Pratap Chandra Rai and so many
other useful men, know how to persevere.
And you, brave children, will you not join the
great army of men and women who never tire of
doing good and never abandon their task until they
have completed it?
In this wide world, there is no lack of noble
work to be accomplished, nor is there any lack of
good people to undertake it; but what is very
often lacking is the perseverance which alone can
carry it through to the end.
SECTION IV: QUESTIONS & ANSWERS Some Explanations Words of Sri Aurobindo
Q: Are not religious practices like doing japa, reading holy scriptures, doing puja, etc, signs of aspiration for the Divine life? Are they not a help for reaching the highest Truth?
A: It depends on the spirit in which they are done. A man can do all these things and yet remain an unspiritual man or even an Asura.
Q: Is there any spiritual value in going for pilgrimage to holy places and worshipping many gods and goddesses? Does it help in realising the Divine Truth?
A: It has nothing to do with the Truth; it is a religious exercise for the ordinary consciousness.
Q: What is the spiritual utility of 'samkirtan' which is common amongst Vaishnavs?
A: It has a power of raising devotion, especially in the vital parts.
Q: I have read in some religious books that if one member of a family has a spiritual realisation, all the other members get Mukti by his influence. How far is this true?
A: It is not true. Each has his own destiny and his entering into a particular family in one life is only an incident.
Q: ls there any possibility of fully turning towards God for people who remain wholly engrossed in worldly life and remember God only in times of difficulty and calamity?
A: There is a future possibility for everyone, even for the atheist or the one who never thinks of God.
Q: lf even the atheist or one who never thinks of God, has a future possibility of fully turning to God, then why should anyone enter the spiritual life and face its difficulties?
A: The future possibility may only realise after ten thousand years and even then it can only come by practising Yoga.
Q: Ordinary people call for the action of the Divine Grace in times of calamity but afterwards forget the Divine. Does the Grace act in the life of people only in this way ?
A: It is only with the ordinary people that it is like that, not with those who seek after the Divine. The special Grace of the Divine is for the seekers of the Divine - for the others it is a Cosmic Will acting through their Karma.
Q: ls there any difference between the Divine Will and the Divine Grace? Are they not the same?
A: The Divine Will works on all things - it may work out anything whatever. The Divine Grace comes in to help and save.
The whole of our life should be a prayer offered
to the Divine.
- The Mother
Matter shall reveal the Spirit's face.
- Sri Aurobindo
1 These are three of the four classes of devotees which are recognised by the Gita,,
,
, the distressed, the seeker of personal objects and the seeker of God-knowledge. back