SECTION
NINE
Sadhana in the Ashram and
Outside
THIS
Ashram has been created with another object than that ordinarily common to such
institutions, not for the renunciation of the world but as a centre and a field
of practice for the evolution of another kind and form of life which would in
the final end be moved by a higher spiritual consciousness and embody a greater
life of the spirit. There is no general rule as to the stage at which one may
leave the ordinary life and enter here; in each case it depends on the personal
need and impulsion and the possibility or the advisability for one to take the
step.
This is not an Ashram like others
– the members are not Sannyasis; it is not mokşa that is the sole aim
of the yoga here. What is being done here is a preparation for a work – a work
which will be founded on yogic consciousness and Yoga-Shakti, and can have no
other foundation. Meanwhile, every member here is expected to do some work in
the Ashram as part of this spiritual preparation.
The difficulty is that she seems
to have only vairāgya
for worldly life without any knowledge or special call for this yoga, and this
yoga and the life here are quite different things from ordinary yoga and
ordinary Ashrams. It is not a life of meditative retirement as elsewhere.
Moreover, it would be impossible for us to demand anything without seeing her
and knowing at close hand what she is like. We are not just now for taking more
inmates into the Ashram except in a very few cases.
“Dedication of life” is quite
possible for some without their stay-
Page – 847
ing
here. It is a question of inward attitude and of the total consecration of the
being to the Divine.
We do not think it would be
advisable at this stage [for X to come to stay at the Ashram]. By coming to the
Ashram difficulties do not cease – they have to be faced and overcome wherever
you are. For certain natures residence in the Ashram from the beginning is
helpful – others have to prepare themselves outside.
I have read and considered your
letter and have decided to give you the opportunity you ask for – you can
reside in the Ashram for two or three months to begin with and find out whether
this is really the place and the path you were seeking and we also can by a
closer observation of your spiritual possibilities discern how best we can help
you and whether this yoga is the best for you.
This trial is
necessary for many reasons, but especially because it is a difficult yoga to
follow and not many can really meet the demands it makes on the nature. You have
written that you saw in me one who achieved through the perfection of the
intellect, its spiritualisation and divinisation; but in fact I arrived through
the complete silence of the mind and whatever spiritualisation and divinisation
it attained was through the descent of a higher supra-intellectual knowledge
into that silence. The book, Essays on the Gita, itself was written in that
silence of the mind, without intellectual effort and by a free activity of this
knowledge from above. This is important because the principle of this yoga is
not perfection of the human nature as it is but a psychic and spiritual
transformation of all the parts of the being through the action of an inner
consciousness and then of a higher consciousness which works on them, throws
out their old movements or changes them into the image of its own and so
transmutes lower into higher nature. It is not so much the perfection of the
intellect as a transcendence of it, a transformation of the mind, the
substitution of a larger greater principle of know-
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ledge – and so with all the rest
of the being.
This is a slow
and difficult process; the road is long and it is hard to establish even the
necessary basis. The old existing nature resists and obstructs and difficulties
rise one after another and repeatedly till they are overcome. It is therefore necessary
to be sure that this is the path to which one is called before one finally
decides to tread it.
If you wish, we
are ready to give you the trial you ask for. On receiving your answer the
Mother will make the necessary arrangements for your residence in the Ashram.
It is not helpful to abandon the
ordinary life before the being is ready for the full spiritual life. To do so
means to precipitate a struggle between the different elements and exasperate
it to a point of intensity which the nature is not ready to bear. The vital
elements in you have partly to be met by the discipline and experience of life,
while keeping the spiritual aim in view and trying to govern life by it
progressively in the spirit of Karmayoga.
It is for this
reason that we gave our approval to your marriage.
No, it is not enough to be in the
Ashram; one has to open to the Mother and put away the mind which one was
playing with in the world.
There is no formal initiation,
acceptance is sufficient, but I do not usually accept unless I have seen, or
the Mother has seen the person or unless there is a clear sign that he is meant
for this yoga. Sometimes those who desire to be disciples have seen me in dream
or vision before acceptance.
What you say is right. This
attitude that the Divine has need of
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the sadhak and not the sadhak of
the Divine, is utterly wrong and absurd. When people are accepted here, they
are given a chance of a great Divine Grace, of being instruments of a great
work. To suppose that the Divine cannot do his work without the help of this or
that person is surely most arrogant and illogical. They ought to remember the
Gita's ŗte'pi tvām “even
without thee” the work can be done and its nimittamātram bhava.
I was thinking not of Pranam etc.
which have a living value, but of old forms which persist although they have no
longer any value – e.g. śrāddha
for the dead. Also here forms which have no relation to this yoga – for
instance Christians who cling to the Christian forms or Mahomedans
to the Namaz or Hindus to the Sandhyavandana
in the old way might soon find them either falling off or else an obstacle to
the free development of their sadhana.
II
What you write shows that you had
a wrong idea of the work. The work in the Ashram was not meant as a service to humanity
or to a section of it called the sadhaks of the Ashram. It was not meant either
as an opportunity for a joyful social life and a flow of sentiments and
attachments between the sadhaks and an expression of the vital movements, a
free vital interchange whether with some or with all. The work was meant as a
service to the Divine and as a field for the inner opening to the Divine,
surrender to the Divine alone, rejection of ego and all the ordinary vital
movements and the training in a psychic elevation, selflessness, obedience,
renunciation of all mental, vital or other self-assertion of the limited
personality. Self-affirmation is not the aim, the formation of a collective
vital ego is also not the aim. The merging of the little ego in union with the
Divine, purification, surrender, the substitution of the Divine guidance for
one's own ignorant self-guidance based on one's personal ideas and
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personal feelings is the aim of
Karmayoga, the surrender of one's own will to the Divine Will.
If one feels
human beings to be near and the Divine to be far and seeks the Divine through
service of and love of human beings and not the direct service and love of the
Divine, then one is following a wrong principle – for that is the principle of
the mental, vital and moral not the spiritual life.
[“The love of the Divine in all
beings and the constant perception and acceptance of its workings in all
things.”] That is all right in the ordinary Karmayoga which aims at union with
the cosmic spirit and stops short at the Overmind – but here a special work has
to be done and a new realisation achieved for the earth and not for ourselves
alone. It is necessary to stand apart from the rest of the world so as to
separate ourselves from the ordinary consciousness in order to bring down a new
one.
It is not that
love for all is not part of the sadhana, but it has not to translate itself at
once into a mixing with all – it can only express itself in a general and when
need be dynamic universal goodwill, but for the rest it must find vent in this
labour of bringing down the higher consciousness with all its effect for the
earth. As for accepting the working of the Divine in all things that is
necessary here too in the sense of seeing it even behind our struggles and
difficulties, but not accepting the nature of man and the world as it is – our
aim is to move towards a more divine working which will replace what now is by a
greater and happier manifestation. That too is a labour of divine Love.
As for our own position it is
that ordinary life is Maya in this sense, not that it is an illusion, for it
exists and is very real, but that it is an Ignorance, a thing founded on what
is from the spiritual point of view a falsehood. So it is logical to avoid it
or rather we are obliged to have some touch with it but we minimise
that as much as possible except in so far as it is useful for
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our purpose. We have to turn life
from falsehood into spiritual truth, from a life of Ignorance into a life of
spiritual knowledge. But until we have succeeded in doing that for ourselves,
it is better to keep apart from the life of Ignorance of the world – otherwise
our little slowly growing light is likely to be submerged in the seas of
darkness all around it. Even as it is, the endeavour is difficult enough – it
would be tenfold more difficult if there were no isolation.
Work here and work done in the
world are of course not the same thing. The work there is not in any way a
divine work in special – it is ordinary work in the world. But still one must
take it as a training and do it in the spirit of Karmayoga – what matters there
is not the nature of the work in itself, but the spirit in which it is done. It
must be in the spirit of the Gita, without desire, with detachment, without
repulsion, but doing it as perfectly as possible, not for the sake of the
family or promotion or to please the superiors, but simply because it is the
thing that has been given in the hand to do. It is a field of inner training,
nothing else. One has to learn in it these things, equality, desirelessness, dedication. It is not the work as a thing
for its own sake, but one's doing of it and one's way of doing it that one has
to dedicate to the Divine. Done in that spirit, it does not matter what the
work is. If one trains oneself spiritually like that, then one will be ready to
do in the true way whatever special work directly for the Divine, (such as the
Ashram work) one may any day be given to do.
Obviously the life here is not
that of a place where the mind and vital can hope to be satisfied and fulfilled
or lead a lively life. It is only if one can live within that it becomes
satisfactory.... But for one who has the assured inner life, there is no dullness.
Realisation within must be the first object; work for the Divine on the basis
of the true inner self and a new consciousness, not on
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the basis of the old, is the
result that can follow. Till then work and life can be only a means of sadhana,
not a “self-fulfilment” or a brilliant and interesting vital life on the old
basis.
Here there is nothing that ministers
to the human vital nature; the work is small, silent, shut off from the outside
world and its circumstances, of value only as a field for spiritual
self-culture. If one is governed by the sole spiritual motive and has the spiritual
consciousness, one can take joy and interest in this work. Or if, in spite of
his human shortcomings, the worker is mainly bent on spiritual progress and
self-perfection, then also he can take interest in the work and both feel its
utility for the discovery and purification of his egoistic mental and vital and
physical nature and take joy in it as a service of the Divine.
It is not at all a question of
usefulness – although your work is very useful when you put yourself to it.
Work is part of the sadhana, and in sadhana the question of usefulness does not
arise, that is an outward practical measure of things, – though even in the
outward ordinary life utility is not the only measure. The question is of
aspiration to the Divine, whether that is your central aim in life, your inner
need or not. Sadhana for oneself is another matter – one can take it up or
leave it. The real sadhana is for the Divine – it is the soul's need and one
cannot give it up even if in moments of despondency one thinks one can.
The work here is not intended for
showing one's capacity or having a position or as a means of physical nearness
to the Mother, but as a field and an opportunity for the Karmayoga part of the
integral yoga, for learning to work in the true yogic way, dedication through
service, practical selflessness, obedience, scrupulousness, discipline, setting
the Divine and the
Page – 853
Divine's work first and oneself
last, harmony, patience, forbearance, etc. When the workers learn these things
and cease to be ego-centric, as most of you now are, then will come the time
for work in which capacity can really be shown, although even then the showing
of capacity will be an incident and can never be the main consideration or the
object of divine work.
There is no necessity for
everybody to become artists or writers or do work of a public character. X and
Y have their own capacities and it is sufficient for the present if they train
themselves to make them useful for the Mother's work. Others have great
capacities which they are content to use in the small and obscure work of the
Ashram without figuring before the public in something big. What is important
now is to get the true consciousness from above, get rid of the ego (which nobody
has yet done) and learn to be an instrument of the Divine Force. After that the
manifestation can take place, not before.
What is called politics is too
rajasic, unsound and muddled with all sorts of egoistic motives. Our way is the
pressure of the Spirit upon the earth-consciousness to change.
No, it [politics] is not given as
a work to anybody. People go on with that because it is a mental interest or
habit they do not like giving up, it is like the vital habit of tea-drinking or
anything else of the kind. Politics is not only not given as a work but the
discussion of politics is discouraged as much as possible.
But surely politics is not the
only activity possible for the vital – there are hundreds of others. Whenever
there is something
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to be produced, created,
organised, achieved, conquered, it is the vital that is indispensable.
I have made it a rule not to
write anything about politics. Also the question of what to do in a body like
the Assembly depends on circumstances, on the practical needs of the situation
which can change rapidly. In such a body the work is not of a spiritual
character. All kinds of work can be done with the spiritual consciousness
behind, but unless one has advanced very far, one must in the fact be guided by
the necessities of the work itself and its characteristic nature. Since you
have joined this party, its programme must be yours and what you have to do is
to bring to it all the conscientiousness, ability and selflessness which you
can command. You are right in not taking office, as you have made the promise.
In any case a sadhak entering politics should work not for himself but for the
country. If he takes office, it should be only when he can do something for the
country by it and not until he has proved his character and ability and fitness
for position. You should walk by a high standard which will bring you the
respect even of opponents and justify the choice of the electors.
As for propaganda I have seen
that it is perfectly useless for us – if there is any effect, it is a very
trifling and paltry effect not worth the trouble. If the Truth has to spread
itself, it will do it of its own motion; these things are unnecessary.
Well-known or unknown has
absolutely no importance from the spiritual point of view. It is simply the
propagandist spirit. We are not a party or a church or religion seeking
adherents or proselytes. One man who earnestly pursues the yoga is of more
value than a thousand well-known men.
Page – 855
Fear in these experiences is a
thing one must get rid of; if there is any danger, a call to the Mother is
sufficient, but in reality there is none – for the protection is there.
It is true that
there is in most people here this running after those who come from outside
especially if they are well-known or distinguished. It is a common weakness of
human nature and, like other weaknesses of human nature, the sadhaks seem not
inclined to get rid of it. It is because they do not live sufficiently within,
so the vital gets excited or attracted when something important or somebody
important (or considered so) comes in from outside.
What X or others think or say
does not matter very much after all as we do not depend on them for our work
but on the Divine Will only. So many have said and thought all sorts of things
(people outside) about and against us, that has never affected either us or our
work in the least; it is of a very minor importance.
III
It is necessary or rather
inevitable that in an Ashram which is a “laboratory”, as X puts it, for a
spiritual and supramental yoga, humanity should be variously represented. For
the problem of transformation has to deal with all sorts of elements favourable
and unfavourable. The same man indeed carries in him a mixture of these two
things. If only sattwic and cultured men come for yoga, men without very much
of the vital difficulty in them, then, because the difficulty of the vital element
in terrestrial nature has not been faced and overcome, it might well be that
the endeavour would fail. There might conceivably be under certain
circumstances an overmental layer superimposed on the
mental, vital and physical, and influencing them, but hardly anything
supramental or a sovereign transmutation of the human being. Those in the
Ashram come from all quarters and are of all kinds; it cannot be otherwise.
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In the course of
the yoga, collectively – though not for each one necessarily – as each plane is
dealt with, all its difficulties arise. That will explain much in the Ashram
that people do not expect there. When the preliminary work is over in the
“laboratory”, things must change.
Also, much
stress has not been laid on human fellowship of the ordinary kind between the
inmates (though good feeling, consideration and courtesy should always be
there,) because that is not the aim; it is unity in a new consciousness that is
the aim, and the first thing is for each to do his sadhana, to arrive at that
new consciousness and realise oneness there.
Whatever faults
are there in the sadhaks must be removed by the Light from above – a sattwic
rule can only change natures predisposed to a sattwic rule.
If his faith depends on the
perfection of the sadhaks, obviously, it must be a rather shaky thing! Sadhaks
and sadhikas are not supposed to be perfect. It is only siddhas
for whom one can claim perfection and even then not according to mental standards.... His faith seems to be more mental than
otherwise, and mental faith can easily go.
To be by oneself
very much needs a certain force of inner life. It may be better to vary
solitude with some kind of its opposite. But each has its advantages and
disadvantages and it is only by being vigilant and keeping an inner poise that
one can avoid the latter.
The general principle of
self-consecration and self-giving is the same for all in this yoga, but each
has his own way of consecration and self-giving. The way that X takes is good
for X, just as the way that you take is the right one for you, because it is in
consonance with your nature. If there were not this plasticity and variety, if
all had to be cut in the same pattern, yoga would be a rigid mental machinery,
not a living power.
When you can
sing out of your inner consciousness in which
Page – 857
you feel the Mother moving all
your actions, there is no reason why you should not do it. The development of
capacities is not only permissible but right, when it can be made part of the
yoga; one can give not only one's soul, but all one's powers to the Divine.
It is a little difficult for the
wider spiritual outlook to answer your question in the way you want and every
mental being wants, with a trenchant “Thou shalt” or “Thou shalt not” – especially
when the “thou” is meant to cover “all”. For while there is an identity of
essential aim, while there are general broad lines of endeavour, yet there is
not in detail one common set of rules in inner things that can apply to all
seekers. You ask: “Is not such and such a thing harmful?” But what is harmful
to one may be helpful to another, what is helpful at a certain stage may cease
to be helpful at another, what is harmful under certain conditions may be
helpful under other conditions, what is done in a certain spirit may be
disastrous, the same thing done in a quite different spirit would be innocuous
or even beneficial... there are so many things to be considered: the spirit,
the circumstances, the person, the need and cast of the nature, the stage. That
is why it is said so often that the Guru must deal with each disciple according
to his separate nature and accordingly guide his sadhana; even if it is the
same line of sadhana for all, yet at every point for each it differs. That also
is the reason why we say that the divine way cannot be understood by the mind,
because the mind acts according to hard and fast rules and standards, while the
spirit sees the truth of all and the truth of each and acts variously according
to its own comprehensive and complex vision. That also is why we say that no
one can understand by his personal mental judgment the Mother's actions and
reasons for action: it can only be understood by entering into the larger
consciousness from which she sees things and acts upon them. That is baffling
to the mind because it uses its small measures, but that is the truth of the
matter.
So you will see
that here there is no mental rule, but in each case the guidance is determined
by spiritual reasons which are of a flexible character. There is no other
consideration, no rule.
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Music, painting, poetry and many
other activities which are of the mind and vital can be used as part of
spiritual development or of the work and for a spiritual purpose: it depends on
the spirit in which they are done.
Why should the Mother be obliged
to treat everybody in the same way? It would be a most imbecile thing for her
to do that.
It is not a fact that all I write
is meant equally for everybody. That assumes that everybody is alike and there
is no difference between sadhak and sadhak. If it were so everybody would
advance alike and have the same experiences and take the same time to progress
by the same steps and stages. It is not so at all. In this case the general
rules were laid down for one who had made no progress – but everything depends
on how the yoga comes to each person.
It is not always safe to apply
practically to oneself what has been written for another. Each sadhak is a case
by himself and one cannot always or often take a mental rule and apply it rigidly
to all who are practising the yoga. What I wrote to X
was meant for X and fits his case, but supposing a sadhak with a different
(coarse) vital nature unlike X were in question, I might say to him something
that might seem the very opposite, “Sit tight on your lower vital propensities,
throw out your greed for food – it is standing as a serious obstacle in your
way; it would be better for you to be ascetic in your habits than vulgarly animal
in this part as you are now”. To one who is not taking enough food or sleep and
rest in the eagerness of his spirit, I might say, “Eat more, sleep more, rest
more, do not overstrain yourself or bring an ascetic spirit into your tapasya”. To another with the opposite excess I might speak
a contrary language. Each sadhak has
Page – 859
a nature or turn of nature of his
own and the movement of the yoga of two sadhaks, even where there are some resemblances
between them, is seldom exactly the same.
Again, in
applying some truth that is laid down it is necessary to give it its precise
meaning. It is quite true that “in our path the attitude is not one of forceful
suppression, nigraha”;
it is not coercion according to a mental rule or principle on an unpersuaded vital being. But that does not mean either that
the vital has to go its own way and do according to its fancy. It is not
coercion that is the way, but an inner change in which the lower vital is led,
enlightened and transformed by a higher consciousness which is detached from
the objects of vital desire. But in order to let this grow an attitude has to
be taken in which a decreasing importance has to be attached to the
satisfaction of the claims of the lower vital, a certain mastery, samyama, being
above any clamour of these things, limiting such
things as food to their proper place. The lower vital has its place, it is not
to be crushed or killed, but it has to be changed, “caught hold of by both
ends”, at the upper end a mastery and control, at the lower end a right use.
The main thing is to get rid of attachment and desire; it is then that an
entirely right use becomes possible. By what actual steps, in what order,
through what processes this mastery of the lower vital shall come depends on
the nature, the stress of development, the actual movement of the yoga.
It is not the
eating or the not eating of something that is the important point; what is
important is how that or any of these food matters affects you, what is your
inner condition and how any such indulgence, cooking or eating, stands or does not
stand in the way of its progress and change, what is best for you as a yogic
discipline. One rule for you I can lay down, “Do not do, say or think anything
which you would want to conceal from the Mother”. And that answers the
objections that rose within you – from your vital, is it not? – against
bringing “these petty things” to the Mother's notice. Why should you think that
the Mother would be bothered by these things or regard them as petty? If all
the life is to be yoga what is there that can be called petty or of no
importance? Even if the Mother does not answer, to have
Page – 860
brought any matter of your action
and self-development before her in the right spirit means to have put it under
her protection, in the light of the Truth, under the rays of the Power that is
working for the transformation – for immediately those rays begin to play and
to act on the thing brought to her notice. Anything within that advises not to
do it when the spirit in you moves you to do it, may very well be a device of
the vital to avoid the ray of the Light and the working of the Force.
One must not treat human nature
like a machine to be handled according to rigid mental rules – a great
plasticity is needed in dealing with its complex motives.
IV
Yes, even in ordinary life there
must be a control over the vital and the ego – otherwise life would be
impossible. Even many animals, those who live in groups, have their strict
rules imposing a control on the play of the ego and those who disobey will have
a bad time of it. The Europeans especially understand this and even though they
are full of ego, yet when there is a question of team work or group life, they
are adepts at keeping it in leash, even if it growls inside; it is the secret
of their success. But in yoga life of course it is a question not of
controlling ego but of getting rid of it and rising to a higher principle, so
demand is much more strongly and insistently discouraged.
A rule that can be varied by
everyone at his pleasure is no rule. In all countries in which organised work
is successfully done, (India
is not one of them), rules exist and nobody thinks of breaking them, for it is
realised that work (or life either) without discipline would soon become a
confusion and an anarchic failure. In the great days of India
everything was put under rule, even
Page – 861
art and poetry, even yoga. Here
in fact rules are much less rigid than in any European organisation. Personal
discretion can even in a frame of rules have plenty of play – but discretion
must be discreetly used, otherwise it becomes something arbitrary or chaotic.
The Mother puts her protection
round all the sadhaks, but if by their own act or attitude they go out of the
circle of the protection there may be undesirable consequences.
[Discipline:] To act according to
a standard of Truth or a rule or law of action (dharma) or in obedience to a
superior authority or to the highest principles discovered by the reason and
intelligent will and not according to one's own fancy, vital impulses and
desires. In yoga obedience to the Guru or to the Divine and the law of the
Truth as declared by the Guru is the foundation of discipline.
You are putting the cart before
the horse. It is not the right way to make the condition that if you get what
you want you will be obedient and cheerful. But be always obedient and cheerful
and then what you want will have a chance of coming to you.
Rules are indispensable for the
orderly management of work; for without order and arrangement nothing can be
properly done, all becomes clash, confusion and disorder.
In all such
dealings with others, you should see not only your own side of the question but
the other side also. There should be no anger, vehement reproach or menace, for
these things only raise anger and retort on the other side. I write this because
you are trying to rise above yourself and dominate your vital and when one
wants to do that, one cannot be too strict
Page – 862
with oneself in these things. It
is best even to be severe with one's own mistakes and charitable to the
mistakes of others.
Yes, quite right. It is a
deficiency of psychic perception and spiritual discrimination that makes people
speak like that and ignore the importance of obedience. It is the mind wanting
to follow its own way of thinking and the vital seeking freedom for its desires
which argue in this manner. If you do not follow the rules laid down by the
spiritual guide or obey one who is leading you to the Divine, then what or whom
are you to follow? Only the ideas of the individual mind and the desires of the
vital: but these things never lead to siddhi in yoga. The rules are laid down
in order to guard against certain influences and their dangers and to keep a
right atmosphere in the Ashram favourable to spiritual development; the
obedience is necessary so as to get away from one's own mind and vital and
learn to follow the Truth.
Rules like these are intended to
help the vital and physical to come under the discipline of sadhana and not get
dispersed in fancies, impulses, self-indulgences; but they must be done simply,
not with any sense of superiority or ascetic pride, but as a mere matter of
course. It is true also that they can be made the occasion of a too great
mental rigidity – as if they were things of supreme importance in themselves
and not only a means. Put in their right place and done in the right spirit,
they can be very helpful for their purpose.
What most want is that things
should be done according to their desire without check or reference. The talk
of perfection is humbug. Perfection does not consist in everybody being a law
to himself. Perfection comes by renunciation of desires and surrender to a
higher Will.
Page – 863
If I said things that human
nature finds easy and natural, that would certainly be very comfortable for the
disciples, but there would be no room for spiritual aim or endeavour. Spiritual
aims and methods are not easy or natural (e.g. as quarrelling, sex indulgence,
greed, indolence, acquiescence in all imperfections are easy and natural) and
if people become disciples, they are supposed to follow spiritual aims and endeavours, however hard and above ordinary nature and not
the things that are easy and natural.
In the outside world there is a
mental and social control and also the absorption in other things. Here you are
left alone with your own consciousness and have to replace the mental and
outward control by an inner self-control of the spirit.
It is no question of fault or
punishment – if we have to condemn and punish people for their faults and deal
with the sadhaks like a tribunal of justice, no sadhana could be possible. I do
not see how your reproach against us is justifiable. Our sole duty to the
sadhaks is to take them towards their spiritual realisation – we cannot behave
like the head of a family intervening in domestic quarrels, supporting one,
putting our weight against the other! However often X may stumble, we have to
take him by the hand, lift him up again and get him to move once more towards
the Divine. We have always done the same with you. But we could not support any
demand of yours upon him. We have always treated it as something between him
and the Divine. For you, the one thing we have insisted on and that with your
full consent and with your prayers to us to be helped in doing it, is to cut
the vital relation with him altogether and to base nothing upon it any more.
Yet now you write to us that because we have not approved of your action of
what you said to Y, no matter what that might be, – you renounce us forever.
I must ask you
to return to your better self and your true consciousness and throw off these
moods of vital passion which
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are unworthy of your soul. You
have repeatedly written of your love for the Mother, the Ananda which you
received from her and the number of spiritual experiences. Remember that and
remember that that is your true way and your true being and nothing else
matters. Get back your poise and throw off the lower nature and its darkness
and ignorance.
V
No one in fact is kept here when
his will or decision is to go – although the principle of the spiritual life is
against any return to the old one even for a time especially if the deeper urge
is there and striving towards a firm foundation of the new consciousness – for
the return to the ordinary atmosphere and surroundings and motives disturbs the
work and throws back the progress.
When there is so sharp a
difference between the inner and the outer being, it is always the sadhak who
has to make his choice. As for coming back, many who have gone out have come
back, others have not – for in going out there is always the danger of entering
into a current of forces that make return impossible. Whatever decision you
make should be clear and deliberate – otherwise you may go out and as soon as
you are there want to come back and after coming here again want to go; that
would be inadmissible.
It is well understood that the
permission given [to go away from the Ashram] does not exclude the possibility
of the experiment ending badly. But the experiment becomes necessary if the
pull of the ego or outer being and that of the soul have become too acute for
solution otherwise or if the outer being insists on having its experience.
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It is especially when the outer
being rejects the Truth and insists on living its life and refuses the rule of
the spiritual life that the experiment [of going away from the Ashram] becomes
inevitable. I have never said that it is recommendable.
In some it [the push to go away
from the Ashram] is too strong; they have to go and see for themselves. That
does not mean that everyone has to go whenever he feels a difficulty. These are
exceptional cases.
There is no such impossibility of
your victory over the harder parts of your nature as you imagine. There is only
needed the perseverance to go on till this resistance breaks down and the
psychic which is not absent nor unmanifest is able to dominate the others. That
has to be done whether you stay here or not and to go is likely only to
increase the difficulty and imperil the final result – it cannot help you. It
is here that the struggle however acute has, because of the immediate presence
of the Mother, the best chance and certitude of a solution and successful
ending.
It usually happens like that – when
one comes out of the world, the forces that govern the world do all they can to
pull you back into their own unquiet movement.
It is certainly strange. Most
people after the atmosphere here cannot tolerate the ordinary atmosphere. If
they go outside, they are restless until they return. Even X's aunt who was
here only for a few months writes in the same way. But probably when people get
into the control of a falsehood as Y and Z did, they are projected into the
unregenerated vital nature
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and no longer feel the difference
of the atmosphere.
All yoga is difficult, because the
aim in every yoga is to reach the Divine, to turn entirely towards the Divine
and that means to turn away from the ordinary movements of the nature to
something beyond it. But when one aspires with sincerity the strength is given
that ends by surmounting the difficulties and reaching the goal.
The Mother was
speaking of sadhaks who had entered into the life and atmosphere of the Ashram
and felt the touch on the psychic of what is here. It does not apply to those
who have come here from the outside world but still belong to the outside. All
the ties of X's nature were still with the outside life; her vital was quite unadapted to the Ashram life and recoiled from the idea of
living it always. She gave her psychic no time to make that connection and
absorb that influence which would have fixed in it the feeling of this as its
true home. People can come here like that and stay for a time and go without
any difficulty as many have done. The feeling of difficulty or uneasiness in
going is on the other hand a sign that the soul has taken root here and finds
it painful to uproot itself. There are some who are like that and have had to
go but do not feel at ease and are always thinking of how to come back as soon
as possible.
To help others
without egoism or attachment or leaving the spiritual surroundings and
spiritual life is one thing, to be pulled away by personal attachment or the
need of helping others to the outside life is different.
The inability to go [from the
Ashram] can come from the psychic which refuses, when it comes to the point, to
allow the other parts to budge, or it can come from the vital which has no
longer any pull towards the ordinary life and knows that it will never be
satisfied there. It is usually the higher parts of the vital that act like
that. What still is capable of turning outwards is pro-
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bably
the physical vital in which the old tendencies have not been extinguished.
You ought to be able to see...
that the cause of the unrest is in yourself and not in the outward
circumstances. It is your vital attachment to family ties and the ordinary
social ideas and feelings that has risen in you and creates the difficulty. If
you want to practise yoga, you must be able to live in the world, so long as
you are there, with a mind set upon the Divine and not bound by the
environment. One who does this, can help those around him a hundred times more
than one who is bound and attached to the world.
It is not
possible for the Mother to tell you to remain, if you are yourself in your mind
and vital eager to go. It is from within yourself that there must come the
clear will on one side or the other.
It is easier to feel the presence
in the atmosphere of the Ashram than outside it. But that is only an initial
difficulty which one can overcome by a steadiness in the call and a constant
opening of oneself to the influence.
The force is there in the
atmosphere, but you must receive it in the right way – in the spirit of
self-giving, openness, confidence. All the rest depends on that.
What is true is that there is a
strong force going out from here and it is naturally strongest at the centre.
But how it affects there, depends on how one receives it. If it is received
with simple trust, faith, openness, confidence, then it works as a complete
protection. But it can so work too at a distance. It is not the house, it is
the inner nearness that matters.
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VI
The best way to prepare oneself
for the spiritual life when one has to live in the ordinary occupations and
surroundings is to cultivate an entire equality and detachment and the samatā of the Gita with the faith
that the Divine is there and the Divine Will at work in all things even though
at present under the conditions of a world of Ignorance. Beyond this are the
Light and Ananda towards which life is working, but the best way for their
advent and foundation in the individual being and nature is to grow in this
spiritual equality. That would also solve your difficulty about things unpleasant
and disagreeable. All unpleasantness should be faced with this spirit of samatā.
When one is living in the world,
one cannot do as in an Ashram – one has to mix with others and keep up
outwardly at least ordinary relations with others. The important thing is to
keep the inner consciousness open to the Divine and grow in it. As one does
that, more or less rapidly according to the inner intensity of the sadhana, the
attitude towards others will change. All will be seen more and more in the
Divine and the feelings, actions, etc. will more and more be determined, not by
the old external reactions, but by the growing consciousness within you.
The difficulty which you
experience from relatives and others is always one that intervenes as an
obstacle when one has to practise the sadhana in ordinary or unfavourable surroundings.
The only way to escape from it is to be able to live in oneself in one's inner
being – which becomes possible when the responsiveness and luminosity of which
you speak in your letter increase and become normal, for then you are
constantly aware of your inner being and even live in it – the outer becomes an
instrument, a means of communication and action in the outer world. It is then
possible to make the relations with people outside free
Page – 869
from tie or necessary reaction – one
can determine from within one's own reaction or absence of reaction: there is a
fundamental liberation from the external nexuses – of course, if one wills it
to be so.
The life of samsāra is in its nature a
field of unrest – to go through it in the right way one has to offer one's life
and actions to the Divine and pray for the peace of the Divine within. When the
mind becomes quiet, one can feel the Divine Mother supporting the life and put
everything into her hands.
Peace is never easy to get in the
life of the world and never constant, unless one lives deep within and bears
the external activities as only a surface front of being.
In her condition the one thing by
which she can enter into the sadhana is to remember the Divine always, taking
her difficulties as ordeals to be passed through, to pray constantly and seek
the Divine help and protection and ask for the opening of her heart and
consciousness to the supporting Divine Presence.
It is not possible for the Mother
to promise to give help in worldly matters. She intervenes only in special
cases. There are some of course, who by their openness and their faith get her
help in any worldly difficulty or trouble but that is a different thing. They
simply remember and call the Mother and in due time some result comes.
The tendency you speak of, to
leave the family and social life for the spiritual life, has been traditional
in India for
the last
Page – 870
2000 years and more – chiefly
among men, it touches only a very small number of women. It must be remembered
that Indian social life has subordinated almost entirely the individual to the
family. Men and women do not marry according to their free will; their
marriages are mostly arranged for them while they are still children. Not only
so, but the mould of society has been long of an almost iron fixity putting
each individual in his place and expecting him to conform to it. You speak of
issues and a courageous solution, but in this life there are no problems and issues
and no call for a solution – a courageous solution is only possible where there
is freedom of the personal will; but where the only solution (if one remains in
this life) is submission to the family will, there can be nothing of the kind.
It is a secure life and can be happy if one accommodates oneself to it and has
no unusual aspirations beyond it or is fortunate in one's environment; but it
has no remedy for or escape from incompatibilities or any kind of individual
frustration; it leaves little room for initiative or free movement or any
individualism. The only outlet for the individual is his inner spiritual or
religious life and the recognized escape is the abandonment of the samsāra, the
family life, by some kind of Sannyasa. The Sannyasi, the Vaishnava Vairagi or the Brahmachari are free; they are dead to the
family and can live according to the dictates of the inner spirit. Only if they
enter into an order or Ashram, they have to abide by the rules of the order,
but that is their own choice. Society recognised this
door of escape from itself; religion sanctioned the idea that distaste for the
social or worldly life was a legitimate ground for taking up that of the
recluse or religious wanderer. But this was mainly for men; women, except in
old times among the Buddhists who had their convents and in later times among
the Vaishnavas, had little chance of such an escape unless a very strong
spiritual impulse drove them which would take no denial. As for the wife and
children left behind by the Sannyasi, there was little difficulty, for the
joint family was there to take up or rather to continue their maintenance.
At present what
has happened is that the old framework remains, but modern ideas have brought a
condition of inadaptation, of unrest, the old family
system is breaking up and women
Page – 871
are seeking in more numbers the
same freedom of escape as men have always had in the past. That would account
for the cases you have come across – but I don't think the number of such cases
can be as yet at all considerable, it is quite a new phenomenon; the admission
of women to Ashrams is itself a novelty. The extreme unhappiness of a mental
and vital growth which does not fit in with the surroundings, of marriages
imposed that are unsuitable and where there is no meeting-point between husband
and wife, of an environment hostile and intolerant of one's inner life, and on
the other hand the innate tendency of the Indian mind to seek a refuge in the
spiritual or religious escape will sufficiently account for the new development.
If society wants to prevent it, it must itself change. As to individuals, each
case must be judged on its own merits; there is too much complexity in the
problem and too much variation of nature, position, motives for a general rule.
I have spoken of
the social problem in general terms only. In the conduct of the Ashram, we have
had many applications obviously dictated by an unwillingness to face the
difficulties and responsibilities of life – naturally ignored or refused by us,
but these have been mostly from men; there have been recently only one or two
cases of women. Otherwise women have not applied usually on the ground of an
unhappy marriage or difficult environment. Most of the married sadhikas have
followed or accompanied their husbands on the ground of having already begun to
practise yoga; others have come fulfilling sufficiently the responsibilities of
married life; in two or three cases there has been a separation from the husband
but that was before their coming here. In some cases there have been no
children, in others the children have been left with the family. These cases do
not really fall in the category of those you mention. Some of the sadhaks have
left wife and family behind, but I do not think in any case the difficulties of
life were the motive of their departure. It was rather the idea that they had
felt the call and must leave all to follow it.
END OF PART TWO
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