On Thoughts and Aphorisms

Aphorism - 50

50—To hate the sinner is the worst sin, for it is hating God; yet he who commits it glories in his superior virtue.

When we enter into a certain state of consciousness, we see clearly that we are capable of anything and that in fact there is not a single "sin" that is not potentially our sin. Is this impression correct? And yet we revolt against and feel an aversion for certain things: there is always something somewhere which we cannot accept. Why?

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What is the true attitude, the effective attitude in face of evil?¹

There is not a single sin that is not our sin.... You have this experience when for some reason or other—depending on the case—you come into contact with the universal state of consciousness—not in its limitless essence, but on any level of Matter. There is an atomic consciousness; there is a purely material consciousness; and there is, even more, a general psychological consciousness. When by going within, by a kind of withdrawal from the ego, you come into contact with this zone of consciousness, let us say, a terrestrial or collective human psychological zone—there is a difference, "collective human" is restrictive, whereas "terrestrial" includes many animal movements, even plant movements; but as in the present case the moral notion of guilt, sin, evil belongs exclusively to the human consciousness, we will say simply the collective human psychological consciousness—when you come into contact with that through this identification, naturally you feel or see or know that you are capable of any human movement anywhere. It is to some extent a truth-consciousness—this egoistic sense of what belongs and does not belong to you, of what you can do and cannot do, disappears at that time; you become aware that the fundamental structure of the human consciousness is such that any human being is capable of doing anything at all. And since you are in a truth-consciousness, at the same time you have the feeling that judgments or aversions, or rejection, are absurd. Everything is potentially there. And if certain currents of force—which you usually cannot trace; you see them come and go, but as a rule their origin and direction are unknown—if any one of these currents enters into you, it can make you do anything.

If you could always remain in this state of consciousness, after some time—provided you maintained within you the flame

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of Agni, the flame of purification and progress—you would be able not only to prevent these movements from taking an active form in you and expressing themselves materially, but also to act on the very nature of the movement and transform it. But, of course, unless you have attained a very high degree of realisation, it will be practically impossible to maintain this state of consciousness for long. Almost immediately you fall back into the egoistic consciousness of the separate self. And then all the difficulties come back: the disgust, the revolt against certain things, the horror they arouse in you, etc.

It is probable—it is even certain—that until you are yourself completely transformed, these movements of disgust and revolt are needed so that you can do in yourself what has to be done to shut the door. For after all, the problem is not to allow them to manifest themselves.

In another Aphorism Sri Aurobindo says—I no longer remember his exact words—that sin is merely something which is not in its right place. In this perpetual Becoming nothing ever repeats itself, and there are things that disappear, so to speak, into the past; and when their disappearance becomes necessary these things become, for our very limited consciousness, bad and repulsive. And we revolt against them because their time is over. But if we had the overall view, if we could contain within ourselves the past, the present and the future all at once—as it is somewhere above—we would see the relativity of these things and that it is above all the progressive Force of evolution that gives us the will to reject; and that wherever they are in their right place, they are quite acceptable. Only, it is practically impossible to have this experience unless you have the total vision, that is to say, the vision that belongs to the Supreme alone! Therefore you must first of all identify yourself with the Supreme; then, afterwards, with this identification, you can return to a sufficiently exteriorised consciousness and see things as they are. But that is the principle, and to the extent that you are capable of realising it, you reach a state of consciousness where you can

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look at everything with a smile of total certitude that everything is as it should be.

Naturally, people who do not think deeply enough will say, "Ah, but if we saw that everything is as it should be, nothing would move!" No, you cannot prevent things from moving! Even for a fraction of a second they do not stop moving. It is a continuous, total transformation, a movement that never ceases. And because it is difficult for us to feel like this, it is possible for us to imagine that if we were to enter into certain states of consciousness, things would not change. But even if we were to enter into an apparently total inertia, things would continue to change and so would we!

Basically, disgust, revolt, anger, all these movements of violence are necessarily movements of ignorance and limitation, with all the weakness that limitation represents. Revolt is a weakness—it is the feeling of an impotent will. You will—or you think you will—you feel, you see that things are not as they should be and you revolt against whatever does not agree with what you see. But if you were all-powerful, if your will and your vision were all-powerful, there would be no occasion for you to revolt, you would always see that all things are as they should be. If we go to the highest level and unite with the consciousness of the supreme Will, we see, at every second, at every moment of the universe, that all is exactly as it should be, exactly as the Supreme wills it. That is omnipotence. And all movements of violence become not only unnecessary but utterly ridiculous.

Therefore there is only one solution: to unite ourselves by aspiration, concentration, interiorisation and identification with the supreme Will. And that is both omnipotence and perfect freedom at the same time. And that is the only omnipotence and the only freedom; everything else is an approximation. You may be on the way, but it is not the entire thing. So if you experience this, you realise that with this supreme freedom and supreme power there is also a total peace and a serenity that never fails. Therefore, if you feel something which is not that, a revolt, a

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disgust, something which you cannot accept, it means that in you there is a part which has not been touched by the transformation, something which has kept the old consciousness, something which is still on the path—that is all.

In this Aphorism Sri Aurobindo speaks of those who hate the sinner. One must not hate the sinner.

It is the same problem seen from another angle. But the solution is the same.

Not to hate the sinner is not so difficult, but not to hate the virtuous is much more difficult. It is easy to understand a sinner, it is easy to understand a poor wretch, but the virtuous...

But in reality, what you hate in them is their complacency, it is only that. Because after all they are right not to do evil—you cannot blame them for that! But because of that they think themselves superior. And that is what is so difficult to tolerate: their feeling of superiority, the way in which they look down from their heights on all these poor devils—who are no worse than they are!

Oh, I have seen such marvellous examples of this!

Take, for example, a person who has friends, whose friends are very fond of her because they see special capacities in her, because it is pleasant to be in her company, one can always learn from her. Then all of a sudden, by a concurrence of circumstances, this person is shunned by society because she has been with another man or because she is living with someone else without being officially married, in short, because of all these social things which have no value in themselves. And all her friends—I am not speaking of those who truly loved her—all her acquaintances, all those who received her kindly, who welcomed her and greeted her with a warm smile when

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they met her in the street, now turn their heads the other way and walk right past her without a glance—this has happened even here in the Ashram! I do not want to give any details, but anyway, several times something happened which contravened accepted social laws, and people who had shown so much affection and sympathy—oh, they would sometimes say, "This person is lost!"

When such things happen in the world at large, I find it quite natural, but when it happens here, I always get a little shock, in the sense that I say to myself: "Well, well, they haven't gone beyond that!"

Even people who profess to be broad-minded, to be above all these "conventions", fall straight into the trap, immediately. Then to protect their conscience, they say: "Mother does not allow it. Mother does not permit it. Mother does not tolerate it!"—adding one more stupidity to all the others.

It is very difficult to get out of this state. This is truly self-righteousness, this sense of social dignity. But it is narrow-mindedness, because a person with a little intelligence is not going to be caught out by something like that. For example, people who have travelled the world and seen that all these social rules depend entirely on climate, race, custom, and even more on time and period, can smile at all that. But right-minded people—phew!

It is an elementary stage. Until you come out of this state you are unfit for yoga. Because, truly, you are not ready for yoga when you are in that state. It is a rudimentary state.

January 1961