Pray to the Divine Grace to make you do always the right thing in the right way. Always do what you know to be the best even if it is the most difficult thing to do.

The Mother
( 2 May 1954 )

For those who wish to lead the spiritual life, the Divine must always come first, everything else must be secondary.

Sri Aurobindo
(Letters on Yoga, Page: 1677)

    You blessed me that I may be born to the true life, but what are the conditions needed to be born to that life and how can they be fulfilled?

The first condition is to decide not to live for oneself any more, but to live exclusively for the Divine.

Naturally, this decision should be renewed every day and manifested in a constant and effective will.

Sweet Mother,

“Not to live for oneself” is understandable and one can try to put it into practice; but what does “to live exclusively for the Divine” mean exactly? For me it is only an idea mechanically repeated by the mind; but, Mother, what can one do to realise it?

To live for the Divine means to offer all that one does to the Divine without desiring a personal result from what one does. Certainly at the beginning, when the Divine is only a word or at most an idea and not an experience, the whole thing remains purely mental. But if one makes a sincere and repeated effort, one day the experience comes and one feels that the offering made is made to something real, tangible, concrete and beneficent.

The more sincere and assiduous one is, the sooner the experience comes and the longer it remains.

For each person the way differs in its details, but sincerity and perseverance are equally indispensable for all. 

I met a man (I was perhaps 20 or 21 at the time), an Indian who had come to Europe and who told me of the Gita. There was a French translation of it (a rather poor one, I must say) which he advised me to read, and then he gave me the key (HIS key, it was his key). He said, ‘Read the Gita …‘ (this translation of the Gita which really wasn’t worth much but it was the only one available at the time – in those days I wouldn’t have understood anything in other languages; and besides, the English translations were just as bad and … well, Sri Aurobindo hadn’t done his yet!). He said, ‘Read the Gita knowing that krishna is the symbol of the immanent God, the God within.’ That was all. ‘Read it with THAT knowledge – with the knowledge that krishna represents the immanent God, the God within you.’ Well, within a month, the whole thing was done!

So some of you people have been here since the time you were toddlers – everything has been explained to you, the whole thing has been served to you on a silver platter (not only with words, but through psychic aid and in every possible way), you have been put on the path of this inner discovery … and then you just go on drifting along: ‘When it comes, it will come.’ – If you even spare it that much thought!

So that’s how it is.

But I’m not at all discouraged, I just find it rather laughable. Only there are other far more serious things; for example, when you try to deceive yourselves – that is not so pretty. One should not mix up cats and kings. You should call a cat a cat and a king a king – and human instinct, human instinct – and not speak about things divine when they are utterly human, nor pretend to have supramental experiences when you are living in a blatantly ordinary consciousness.

If you look at yourselves straight in the face and you see what you are, then if by chance you should resolve to … But what really astounds me is that you don’t even seem to feel an intense NEED to do this! ‘But how can we know?’ Because you DO know, you have been told over and over again, it has been drummed into your heads. You KNOW that you have a divine consciousness within you. And yet you can go on sleeping night after night, playing day after day, doing your lessons ad infinitum and still not be … not have a BURNING desire and will to come into contact with yourselves! – With yourselves, yes, the you just there, inside (motion towards the center of the chest) … Really, it’s beyond me!

As soon as I found out – and no one told me, I found out through an experience – as soon as I found out that there was a discovery to be made within myself, well, it became THE MOST IMPORTANT thing in the world. It took precedence over everything else!

And when, as I told you, I chanced upon a book or an individual that could give me just a little clue and tell me, ‘Here. If you do such and such, you will find your path’ – well I charged into it like a cyclone … and nothing could have stopped me.

And how many years have you all been here, half-asleep? Naturally, you’re happy to think about it now and then – especially when I speak to you about it or sometimes when you read. But THAT – that fire, that will which plows through all barriers, that concentration which can triumph over EVERYTHING …

Now who was it that asked me what you should do?

(The child:) Me!

Well, that’s what you have to do, my child. I have just told you.

(silence)

You can do nothing with others unless you are able to do it with yourself. You can never give a good advice to anyone unless you are able to give it to yourself first, and to follow it. And if you see a difficulty somewhere, the best way of changing this difficulty is to change it in yourself first. If you see a defect in anyone, you may be sure it is in you, and you begin to change it in yourself. And when you will have changed it in yourself, you will be strong enough to change it in others. And this is a wonderful thing. People don’t realise what an infinite grace it is that this universe is arranged in such a way that there is a collection of substance, from the most material to the highest spiritual, all that gathered together into what is called a small individual, but at the disposal of a central Will. And that is yours, your field of work, nobody can take it away from you, it is your own property. And to the extent you can work upon it, you will be able to have an action upon the world. But only to that extent. One must do more for oneself, besides, than one does for others.

-THE MOTHER
( Vol.5 , p. 19-20)

‘But Mother leaves us free to follow our own promptings. She told me in the first interview that there were no pledges of any kind here as they are “not true”. “Here it is only the Divine”, she said.
That pregnant saying I am only gradually learning to recognise, the significance of this place. I am beginning to see that all the bondage here as elsewhere and everywhere are our own making – that the Divine imposes no bondage of any kind whatsoever.’‘Sometimes I feel as if the Divine were whispering to my soul and I, in order to catch the faintest word, am listening as I have never listened before. Sometimes it is as if the Beloved and I were telling each other secrets that none can share except in a wordless communion with “us”.’‘But I will note, simply as one notes a ‘happening’, that the closer I feel to Mother and Sri Aurobindo, the closer I feel too as an immediate result sometimes, to those other dear ones.’‘.. I was transported into an inner plane of being which I recognise as the same one I was in inwardly at certain moments when my singing was more than ordinarily subjective.’

‘But when I look at the Mother in the morning sunlight on her terrace from which she sends each of us a shaft of love more brilliant than any light that was ever seen on snowy crests, or when in the evening I see her standing in the meditation hall, still in the immutable calm, the Unchanging One, I know that the vast stillness of Mont Blanc is but a faint imitation of that other Peace that She is.’

‘Oh Lois, one cannot talk about Sri Aurobindo and the Mother – one can only suggest in some such words as these that they are what we are seeking, that which we will be in the outer man as now we are in the inner Reality. They are consciously that.’

‘.. One day in a California garden, when the intensity of my enjoyment provoked the rather humorous thought – “I wonder if God enjoys this in exactly this way – if he doesn’t, I’m sorry for him” – then came the idea as a kind of realisation, “it is He that is enjoying this way – perhaps that is the reason for me.’

‘..I think I can say that some kind of ‘experience’ has began for me, for I strike a quiet nearly every day now in meditation in which the consciousness is purer, more whole than in the ordinary state. One of the disciples says that I am beginning to touch the Purusha. The consciousness that I touch, just barely touch (it seems), is situated in the heart centre and Lois, it is so sweet and so clear that now-a-days I feel that those moments are my only conscious moments of the day. That the rest of the time, which is of course most of the time, I am in a sort of unconscious state! If I can have this feeling when I have barely touched something, still thru a veil, what must the unveiled Purusha consciousness be! There is such a thing as getting near the central psychic being and feeling its influence. And the luminousness of mind that comes afterwards makes me feel as if I have never lived or understood anything at all before! I feel like a discoverer every day. The other day in amusement at myself for my excitement over my “petites decouvertes” I said to myself “Why, little Christopher Columbus is discovering India at last!” It is true that America must discover India’s secrets before she can discover herself.

Lord, this morning Thou hast given me the assurance that Thou wouldst stay with us until Thy work is achieved, not only as a consciousness which guides and illumines but also as a dynamic Presence in action. In unmistakable terms Thou hast promised that all of Thyself would remain here and not leave the earth atmosphere until earth is transformed. Grant that we may be worthy of this marvellous Presence and that henceforth everything in us be concentrated on the one will to be more and more perfectly consecrated to the fulfilment of Thy sublime Work.

7 December 1950

The lack of receptivity of the earth and men is mostly responsible for the decision Sri Aurobindo has taken regarding his body. But one thing is certain: what has happened on the physical plane affects in no way the truth of his teaching. All that he has said is perfectly true and remains so. Time and the course of events will prove it abundantly.

8 December 1950

To Thee who hast been the material envelope of our Master, to Thee our infinite gratitude. Before Thee who hast done so much for us, who hast worked, struggled, suffered, hoped, endured so much, before Thee who hast willed all, attempted all, prepared, achieved all for us, before Thee we bow down and implore that we may never forget, even for a moment, all we owe to Thee.

9 December 1950

To grieve is an insult to Sri Aurobindo who is here with us, conscious and alive.

14 December 1950

We must not be bewildered by appearances. Sri Aurobindo has not left us. Sri Aurobindo is here, as living and as present as ever and it is left to us to realise his work with all the sincerity, eagerness and concentration necessary.

15 December 1950

I was painfully shocked when I heard the translation of the leaflet you are distributing here in the Ashram. I never imagined you could have such a complete lack of understanding, respect and devotion for our Lord who has sacrificed Himself  totally for us. Sri Aurobindo was not crippled; a few hours before he left his body he rose from his bed and sat for a long time in his armchair, speaking freely to all those around him. Sri Aurobindo was not compelled to leave his body, he chose to do so for reasons so sublime that they are beyond the reach of human mentality.

And when one cannot understand, the only thing to do is to keep a respectful silence.

26 December 1950

 
We stand in the Presence of Him who has sacrificed his physical life in order to help more fully his work of transformation. He is always with us, aware of what we are doing, of all our thoughts, of all our feelings and all our actions.

18 January 1951

 Sri Aurobindo has given up his body in an act of supreme unselfishness, renouncing the realisation in his own body to hasten the hour of the collective realisation. Surely if the earth were more responsive, this would not have been necessary.

12 April 1953

Sri Aurobindo

(463−Thoughts and Aphorisms)

The Mother

(Words of the Mother, Vol. 15 Page:238)

Volume: 22-23-24 [SABCL] (Letters on Yoga), Page: 1371

Men usually work and carry on their affairs from the ordinary motives of the vital being, need, desire of wealth or success or position or power or fame or the push to activity and the pleasure of manifesting their capacities, and they succeed or fail according to their capability, power of work and the good or bad fortune which is the result of their nature and their Karma. When one takes up the yoga and wishes to consecrate one’s life to the Divine, these ordinary motives of the vital being have no longer their full and free play; they have to be replaced by another, a mainly psychic and spiritual motive, which will enable the sadhak to work with the same force as before, no longer for himself, but for the Divine. If the ordinary vital motives or vital force can no longer act freely and yet are not replaced by something else, then the push or force put into the work may decline or the power to command success may no longer be there. For the sincere sadhak the difficulty can only be temporary; but he has to see the defect in his consciousness or his attitude and to remove it. Then the Divine Power itself will act through him and use his capacity and vital force for its ends.

The only work that spiritually purifies is that which is done without personal motives, without desire for fame or public recognition or worldly greatness, without insistence on one’s own mental motives or vital lusts and demands or physical preferences, without vanity or crude self-assertion or claim for position or prestige, done for the sake of the Divine alone and at the command of the Divine. All work done in an egoistic spirit, however good for people in the world of the Ignorance, is of no avail to the seeker of the yoga.

Letters On Yoga Volume-23, Page 669:  Sadhana Through Work