Letters On Yoga - Parts 2,3

Human Relationships in Yoga - III

The idea of helping others is a subtle form of the ego. It is only the Divine Force that can help. One can be its instrument, but you should first learn to be a fit and egoless instrument.

The idea of helping others is a delusion of the ego. It is only when the Mother commissions and gives her force that one can help and even then only within limits.

All change must come from within with the felt or the secret support of the Divine Power; it is only by one's own inner opening

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to that that one can receive help, not by mental, vital or physical contact with others.

It is a relative and partial help, of course, but it is sometimes useful. A radical help can only come from within through the action of the Divine Force and the assent of the being. It must be said of course that it is not everyone that thinks he is helping who is really doing it; also if the help is accompanied with the exercising of an "influence", that influence may be of a mixed character and harm as well as help if the instrument is not pure.

Yes, it is always so with human conduct—men want to help each other with a motive behind or a feeling which proceeds from the ego.

It is only when one lives in a higher consciousness that it is otherwise.

The real failing of the mother-like ambition—at least as it manifests in many as in her—is that it conceals an ego movement, the desire to play a big part, to have people depending on one, to have the motherly reputation etc., etc. Most human altruism has really this ego basis. If one gets rid of that, then the will to help can take its true place as a movement of pure sympathy and psychic feeling.

You need not trouble yourself much about X's ideas or attach importance to them. The only truth about it is that a vital mixture does very easily get into the movements even of the sadhana, if one is not careful. The one safeguard against that is to turn all towards the Divine and draw all from the Divine, getting rid of attachment, ego and desire. In one's relations with other

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sadhaks there should be neither stiffness and hardness nor attachment and sentimental leanings.

As for the motherly feeling—it has to be transformed like everything else. The danger of all these relations when they are untransformed is that they may minister in a subtle way to the ego. To avoid that, one has to make oneself an instrument merely, but without even the ego of the instrument, and to be conscious of the source, not insisting on the action or any relation, but simply allowing it to be useful whenever one can clearly feel that it is intended. Also one must be careful that no force comes through one except the right forces, those which are in harmony with the higher consciousness and help. If one does always in that spirit and with that care, then even if mistakes are made, it does not matter—the growing consciousness will set them right and progress towards a more perfect working.

Of course it is the disadvantage of helping others that one comes into contact with their consciousness and their difficulties and also gets more externalised.

Yes, it is dangerous [to sympathise with anyone gone wrong], because it puts one in touch with the adverse Force that upset him and that Force at once tries to touch you and make its suggestions and contaminate by a sort of contagion or infection.

By the sympathy you get into contact and receive what is in the other—or also you may give or let go or have drawn from you part of your force which goes to the other. It is the vital sympathy which has this effect; a calm spiritual or psychic goodwill does not bring these reactions.

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However the bearing of others' difficulties would, I fear, be a heavy burden for anybody and I doubt the efficacy of the method. What one can do much more usefully is, if one has strength to give out of one's strength to the other, if one has peace to shed the peace on the other etc. This one can do without losing one's strength or peace—if it is done in the right way.

There are two possible attitudes in the matter and each has something to be said for it. There is much to be said for X's attitude—first, because until one's own siddhi is complete, the help one gives is always a little doubtful and imperfect and, secondly, there is the danger so often emphasised by experienced yogis of taking on oneself the difficulties of those one helps. But all the same to wait for perfection is not always possible.

To want unwaveringly the welfare of another both in the head and the heart, is the best help one can give.

If your husband is in a perilous period of his life and suffering from ill-health and you feel for him, the best thing for him is still that you should tranquillise yourself and call the Divine to his help to pass through. Even in the ordinary life disquietude and depression create an unhelpful atmosphere for one who is ill or in difficulties. Once you are a sadhak, then whether for yourself or to help others for whom you still feel, the true spiritual attitude of reliance on the Divine Will and call for the help from above is always the best and most effective course.

Whatever or whomever you have handed over to the Divine, you should not be any longer attached or anxious about him

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or it but leave all to the Divine to do for the best.

It is very good that the condition you speak of has settled itself—that is a great progress. As for the prayers, the fact of praying and the attitude it brings, especially unselfish prayer for others, itself opens you to the higher Power, even if there is no corresponding result in the person prayed for. Nothing can be positively said about that, for the result must necessarily depend on the persons, whether they are open or receptive or something in them can respond to any Force the prayer brings down.