Questions and Answers (1954)

19 May 1954

This talk is based upon Sri Aurobindo's Elements of Yoga, Chapter 7, "Love".

There is a pure affection for the Divine and a pure love for the Divine. What is the difference?

That depends upon the meaning you give to your words. It depends upon what you call affection. I don't know, but generally affection means something personal and external and a little superficial; it depends altogether on the meaning you give to your words. Usually, when someone says, "Oh! I have much affection for him", this means that one has good feelings, a sort of friendliness but it is nothing very deep; but one may also use the word in a deeper sense. It is very difficult to distinguish between words unless one has already defined one's whole vocabulary quite precisely. It is at the moment of speaking, when one wants to say something, if one puts a kind of intensity of thought, perception, knowledge into the words used, then it can carry that state—that soul-state—with the words. But if words are used altogether intellectually and, so to say, arbitrarily, before using them one should say, "When I say this..." and give a long explanation, a definition.

What does "psychic vision" mean?

Vision? You know what physical vision is, don't you?—physical, do you know it? Well, the same thing happens in the psychic. That is to say, instead of seeing with physical organs, you see with psychic organs. You have these eyes, here, don't you? Well, there are eyes in the psychic which see psychically. It does not depend upon the quality of the vision, it depends upon the state

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of being which sees, the organs which see. A psychic sight sees what goes on in the psychic, either in the psychic state or the psychic domains or the psychic being. A mental sight sees what goes on in the mind: it sees. It is a seeing like a physical sight, truly physical.

With your physical eyes you cannot have a psychic vision; only your psychic being can have psychic sight. You may have a sufficiently close relation with your psychic being to remember what it has seen, to be conscious of what it saw, but it is not your physical being which sees, it is your psychic being. It is not your physical being seeing in a different way, it is your psychic which sees.

Mother, here it is written: "The intensity of divine Love never creates a disturbance anywhere in the being."

Yes.

But if someone has a weak body, doesn't the intensity of divine Love create a disturbance?

In the body? Why should divine Love create a disturbance in the body?

But if it cannot bear the intensity?

That is perhaps not divine Love, then; I don't understand. Automatically one receives only what one can bear, when it is a question of divine Love.

Divine Love is there always in all its intensity, a formidable power. But most people—ninety-nine per cent—do not feel anything at all! What they feel of it is exclusively in proportion to what they are, to their capacity of receiving. Imagine, for instance, that you are bathing in an atmosphere all vibrant with divine Love—you are not at all aware of it. Sometimes, very

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rarely, for a few seconds there is suddenly the feeling of "something". Then you say, "Oh, divine Love came to me!" What a joke! It is just that you were simply, for some reason or other, a wee bit open, so you felt it. But it is there, always, like the divine Consciousness. It is the same thing, it is there, all the time, in its full intensity; but one is not even aware of it; or else in this way, spasmodically: suddenly one is in a good state, so one feels something and says, "Oh, the divine Consciousness, divine Love have turned to me, have come to me!" It is not at all like that. One has just a tiny little opening, very tiny, at times like a pinhead, and naturally that force rushes in. For it is like an active atmosphere; as soon as there is a possibility of being received, it is received. But this is so for all divine things. They are there, only one does not receive them, for one is closed up, blocked; one is busy with other things most of the time. Most of the time one is full of oneself. So, as one is full of oneself, there is no place for anything else. One is very actively (laughing) busy with other things. One is filled with things; there is no place for the Divine.

But He is there.

It is like all the wonders that are there around you; you do not see them. Do you see them?... No. Sometimes, one moment when you are just a tiny bit more receptive, or else when in sleep you are less exclusively busy with your small affairs, you have a gleam of something and see, feel something. But usually, as soon as you are awake again, all this is obliterated—first, as you know, by the formidable ego which is all full of itself, and the whole universe moves in accordance with this ego: you are at the centre, and the universe turns round you. If you look at yourself attentively, you will see it is like that. Your vision of the universe—that's you at the centre and the universe all around. So there is no place for anything else. It is not the universe you see: it is yourself you see in the universe.

So, at first, to begin with, one must be able to get out of the ego. Afterwards, it has to be, you understand, in a certain state of inexistence. Then you begin to perceive things as they are,

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from a little higher up. But if you want to know things as they really are, you must be absolutely like a mirror: silent, peaceful, immobile, impartial, without preferences and in a state of total receptivity. And if you are like that, you will begin to see that there are many things you are not aware of, but which are there, and which will start becoming active in you.

Then you will be able to be in these things instead of being exclusively enclosed within the little point you are in the universe.

There are all kinds of ways of getting out of yourself. But it is indispensable if you want to begin to know things as they are and not in terms of yourself.

What attitude should one take to get out of the ego?

Attitude? It is rather a will, isn't it? You must will it... What should one do, are you asking that?

The surest means is to give oneself to the Divine; not to try to draw the Divine to oneself but try to give oneself to the Divine. Then you are compelled at least to come out a little from yourself to begin with. Usually, you know, when people think of the Divine, the first thing they do is to "pull" as much as they can into themselves. And then, generally, they receive nothing at all. They tell you, "Ah! I called, I prayed and I did not have the answer. I had no answer, nothing came." But then, if you ask, "Did you offer yourself?"—"No, I pulled."—"Ah, yes, that is why it did not come!" It is not that it did not come, it is that when you pull you remain so shut up in your ego, as I told you just now, that it raises a wall between what is to be received and yourself. You put yourself in prison and then you are astonished that in your prison you feel nothing.

Prison, and still more, with no windows on the street.

Throw yourself out (Mother opens her hands), give yourself without holding back anything, simply for the joy of giving yourself. Then there's a chance that you may feel something.

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But if one tries to feel...

If one tries to feel? Is this not still an egoism, this trying to feel?... If one wants to get out of the ego while still remaining egoistic, it is very difficult, isn't it? The two are pretty contradictory.

"Try to feel"—why? for your own satisfaction?

If one tries to feel that one does not exist, that it is the Divine who exists, is that a way of getting out of the ego?

One does not exist? This—I don't know if one can succeed in anything by trying mentally, because this is a kind of mental effort. So one makes mental constructions and does not achieve anything very much. No, what is necessary is something spontaneous, intense, a flame burning in the being, a flame of aspiration, something... I don't know how to put it.

If the thing goes on in the head, nothing, nothing happens.

The effort one can make can be only mental. What can one do to make it spontaneous?

Eh?

The effort one...

Yes, I heard you quite well. But why do you assert that all effort one makes can be only mental?

But what can be done to make it spontaneous?

I believe there is a vast difference between an effort for transformation which, precisely, comes from the psychic centre of the being and a kind of mental constructions to obtain something.

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I don't know, it is very difficult to make oneself understood, but so long as the thing goes on in the head in this way (Mother turns a finger near her forehead), it has no power. It has a very little force that is extremely limited. And all the time it belies itself. One thinks that with great difficulty one collects a will, artificial enough, besides, and one tries to catch something, and the very next minute it has all vanished. And one doesn't even realise it; one asks oneself, "How does it happen to turn out like that?"

I don't know, indeed it seems to me very difficult to do yoga with the head—unless one is gripped.

The will is not in the head.

The will—what I call the will—is something that's here (Mother points to the centre of the chest), which has a power of action, a power of realisation.

What one does exclusively in the head is subject to countless fluctuations; it is not possible to construct a theory, for instance, without there intervening immediately things, which give all the opposite arguments. And so, there's the great skill of the mind, you know: it can prove no matter what, argue about anything at all. Consequently one does not go a step farther. Even if momentarily one catches an idea that has a certain force, unless one can keep that state of intensity, as soon as there is a relaxation all the contrary things come along, and all, as you know, with the charm of their expression. So it is a ceaseless battle.

It has no solution.

You ask how it can be spontaneous? Even in the body, for instance, when there is something like an attack, an accident, an illness trying to come in—something—an attack on the body, a body that is left to its natural spontaneity has an urge, an aspiration, a spontaneous will to call for help. But as soon as the affair goes to the head, it takes the form of things to which one is accustomed: everything is spoilt. But if the body is seen in itself, just as it is, there is something which suddenly wakes up and calls for help, and with such a faith, such an intensity, just as the tiny little baby calls its mamma, you know—or whoever is

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there, it says nothing if it cannot speak. But the body left to itself without this kind of constant action of the mind upon it... well, it has this: as soon as there is some disturbance, immediately it has an aspiration, a call, an effort to seek help, and this is very powerful. If nothing intervenes, it is very powerful. It is as though the cells themselves sprang up in an aspiration, a call.

In the body there are invaluable and unknown treasures. In all its cells, there is an intensity of life, of aspiration, of the will to progress, which one does not usually even realise. The body-consciousness would have to be completely warped by the action of the mind and vital for it not to have an immediate will to re-establish the equilibrium. When this will is not there, it means that the entire body-consciousness has been spoilt by the intervention of the mind and vital. In people who cherish their malady more or less subconsciously with a sort of morbidity under the pretext that it makes them interesting, it is not their body at all—poor body!—it is something they have imposed upon it with a mental or vital perversion. The body, if left to itself, is remarkable, for, not only does it aspire for equilibrium and well-being but it is capable of restoring the balance. If one leaves one's body alone without intervening with all those thoughts, all the vital reactions, all the depressions, and also all the so-called knowledge and mental constructions and fears—if one leaves the body to itself, spontaneously it will do what is necessary to set itself right again.

The body in its natural state likes equilibrium, likes harmony; it is the other parts of the being which spoil everything.

Mother, how can one prevent the mind from intervening?

Ah! First you must will it, and then you must say, as to people who make a lot of noise, "Keep quiet, be quiet, be quiet!"; you must do this when the mind comes along with all its suggestions and all its movements. You must tranquillise it, pacify it, make it silent. The first thing is not to listen to it. Most of the time,

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as soon as all these come, all these thoughts, one looks, seeks to understand, one listens; then naturally that imbecile believes that you are very much interested: it increases its activity. You must not listen, must not pay attention. If it makes too much noise, you must tell it: "Be still! Now then, silence, keep quiet!" without making a lot of noise yourself, you understand? You must not imitate those people who begin shouting: "Keep quiet", and make such a noise themselves that they are even noisier than the others!

(Here the tape-recorder stops at the end of the band. To the disciple:) Don't put in another, it is finished. Fate!

Voilà, au revoir, good night!

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