The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 3

The New Year Initiation

"O Lord, the world implores Thee to prevent it from falling back always into the same stupidities.

"Grant that the mistakes recognised may never be renewed.

"Grant, lastly, that its actions may be the exact and sincere expression of its proclaimed ideals-."—1944

(I)

This is the New Year Prayer the Mother has formulated for our sake. This is the turn She would have us give to our sadhana for the year. What is the special import of this new orientation? It is, one may say, to direct our efforts towards an objective expression, towards an application to life on the material plane.

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One starts on the path of sadhana with an almost entire unconsciousness—it is so in all evolutionary process. A goal is there, vague and indistinct, far off. Within him also the sadhaka feels an equally indefinite and indefinable urge, he seems to move without any fixed aim or purpose, with an urge simply to move and move on. This is what he feels as a yearning, as an aspiration—charaivete, as the Upanishad says. Then step by step as he progresses, his consciousness grows luminous, the aim also begins to take a clear and definite shape. The mind is able slowly to understand and grasp what it wants, the heart's yearning and attraction also begin to be transparent, quiet but deep. Still this cannot be called a change of nature, let alone transformation. Then only will our nature consent really to change when we become, when even our sense-organs become subject to our inner consciousness, when our actions and activities are inspired, guided and formed by the power and influence of this inner light.

In the beginning, the sadhaka finds himself a divided personality—in his heart there is

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the awakening of aspiration, the divine touch, but with all its outward impulses, the physical consciousness remains subject to the control of old fixed habits under the sway of the lower nature. Ordinarily, man is an unconscious sinner, that is to say, he has no sense of what sins he commits. But he becomes a conscious sinner when he reaches the level of which we are speaking. The conflicts, fears, agonies, compunctions in this stage have perhaps been nowhere more evident than in the life of the Christian seeker. In this state we know what to do but cannot do it—the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. We want to do the right thing, we try to do it again and again, yet we fail every time. It is not that we fail only in respect of the movements of our heart and mind, in practice also we commit the same stupidities time and again. These stupidities— and their name is legion—are lust, anger, greed, ignorance, vanity, envy, distrust, disobedience, revolt; repentance, constant repentance and earnest supplication for the divine grace—that is the remedy, says the devout Christian.

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But we, for ourselves, do not give any such supreme place to repentance. For, after all, it is a lower impulse, a vital impulse as we call it; it does not allow the memory of the sin to be forgotten; rather by dwelling upon it constantly, it keeps it alive, makes the impression of the sin all the more lurid. And not unoften does it lead to luxuriating in sinfulness. Behind the sense of repentance is this consciousness, this idea that man is, by nature, corrupt, his sin is original. That is why the Christian seeker has accepted sorrow and suffering, abasement and mortification as the indispensable conditions of his sadhana. This calls to our mind a witty remark of Anatole France, that prince of humorists, that one could not be a lover of Christ unless one sinned—the more one sinned, the more could one grow in righteousness; the more the repentance, in other words, the more the divine grace.

We have said that this is not our path. The divine grace is a fact—without that nothing is possible. From one point of view, the divine grace is unconditioned. But it does not follow

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that the precedent of Jagai-Madhai is the invariable law of spiritual life. The law is rather this that the field must be ready, the being and the consciousness must get into a certain mould, attain certain order and disposition so that the descent of the Divine Grace, its manifestation and play may be possible. For, just as the divine grace is true, so is it equally true that the individual is essentially one with the Divine, sin and ignorance are his external sloughs, identity with the Divine is his natural right. We, therefore, lay equal stress on this hidden aspect of man, on the freedom of his will, on his personal effort which is the determining factor of his destiny. For in the field of ignorance or half-knowledge, in the nether hemisphere of his consciousness, it is this power that directly builds up that ordered state of the being with whose support the divine grace can actualise itself and give a material shape to the integral fulfilment.

Hence the Mother gives the direction that though external lapses may be natural to our external nature, now that our inner consciousness

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has awakened, the vision and the earnestness to see and recognise our mistakes have developed—assuming that this much of development has taken place in us—we must awake to the situation and be on the alert, we must bring such control to bear upon our vital impulses, upon our nervous centres as will prevent, for good and all, errors and stupidities from upsurging again and invading our physical self and our field of action. When we have reached this stage, we have acquired the capacity to ascend to another level of consciousness. It is then that we can lay the foundations of a new order in the world—it is then that along with the purification, the achievement will begin to take on a material form.

(2)

The scope of this New Year Prayer does not limit itself only to our individual sadhana —it embraces also the collective consciousness which is specially the field of its application. It is the muffled voice of entire humanity in

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its secret aspiration that is given expression here. It is by the power of this mantra, protected by this invulnerable armour,—if we choose to accept it as such,—that the collective life of man will attain its fulfilment. We have often stated that the outstanding feature of the modern world is that it has become a Kurukshetra of Gods and Titans. It is no doubt an eternal truth of creation, this conflict between the divine and the anti-divine, and it has been going on in the heart of humanity since its advent upon earth. In the inner life of the world this is a fact of the utmost importance, its most significant principle and mystery. Still it must be said that never in the annals of the physical world has this truth taken such momentous proportions as in the grim present. It is pregnant with all good and evil that may make or mar human destiny in the near future. Whether man will transcend his half-animal state and rise to the full height of his manhood, nay even to the godhead in him, or descend back to the level of his gross brute nature—this is the problem of problems which is being dealt with and solved in

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the course of the mighty holocaust of the present world war.

In her last year's message¹ the Mother gave a clear warning that we must have no more hesitation, that we must renounce one side, free ourselves from all its influence and embrace the other side without hesitation, without reservation. At the decisive moment in the life of the world and of mankind, one must definitely, irrevocably choose one's loyalty. It will not do to say, like the over wise and the over liberal, that both sides—the Allies and the Axis Powers—are equal—equally right or equally wrong—and that we can afford to be outside or above the prejudices or interests of either. There is no room today for a neutral. He who pretends to be a neutral is an enemy to the cause of truth. Whoever is not with us is against us.

¹ "The hour has come when a choice has to be made, radical and definitive.

Lord, give us the strength to reject the falsehood and emerge in Thy truth, pure and worthy of Thy victory." —1943

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We who have taken the side that is for Light and Evolution and the great Future, must be thoroughly alive to the heavy responsibility that lies on us. The choice of the path is not by itself sufficient. Next to that, we have to see, at every step, and make sure that we are really walking straight along the true path, that we do not fall and slip down, that we do not stray unawares into a wrong track or a blind alley.

So far as the World War is concerned all nations and peoples and groups on our side who have felt and proclaimed that they stand for equality, fraternity and freedom, the priests and prophets of a new future, of a happier humanity, all such warriors are also facing a solemn ordeal. For them also the time has come to be on their guard and be watchful. They must see that they give exact expression in their actions to what they have thought, felt and proclaimed. They have to prove by every means, by thought, word and deed, that their entire being is really one, whole and indivisible, in ideal and in intention.

Today at the beginning of the new year we

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have to bear in mind what aim, what purpose inspired us to enter into this tremendous "terrible work", what force, what strength has been leading us to victory. They who consider themselves as collaborators in the progressive evolution of Nature must constantly realise the truth that if victory has come within the range of possibility, it has done so in just proportion to their sincerity, by the magic grace of the Mahashakti, the grace which the aspiration of their inner consciousness has called down. And what is now but possible will grow into the actual if we keep moving along the path we have so far followed. Otherwise, if we falter, fail and break faith, if we relapse into the old accustomed track, if under pressure of past habits, under the temptation of immediate selfish gain, under the sway of narrow parochial egoism, we suppress or maim the wider consciousness of our inner being or deny it in one way or another, then surely we shall wheel back and fall into the clutches of those very hostile powers which it has been our determined effort to overthrow. Even if we gain an outward victory it will be a disastrous,

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moral and spiritual defeat. That will mean a tragic reversal—to be compelled to begin again from the very beginning. Nature will not be baulked of her aim. Another travail she will have to undergo and that will be far more agonising and terrible.

But we do not expect such a catastrophe. We have hope and confidence that the secret urge of Nature, the force of the Mahashakti will save man, individually and collectively, from ignorance and foolishness, vouchsafe to him genuine good sense and the true inspiration.

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