The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 6

SELFLESS WORKER

The Prayer says: "I look for my conscious mind and I find it no more____" Normally one is conscious of oneself. Whatever one does or whenever one does something, the consciousness always remains behind, "I am here, I am doing". And if this sense of "I am" is not there, one can do nothing. All action stops automatically if I do not see or feel that I am acting. But that is the nature of ordinary consciousness; in the spiritual consciousness things are otherwise. Spiritual consciousness means the consciousness in which this sense of "I am doing" or even "I am" has disappeared, got dissolved. Truly, the work is done not by me, by the sense of "I-ness", but by Prakriti, Nature, apparently by Lower Nature, secretly by Higher Nature. When the "I" disappears, the force that has been working continues to work, only the sense of "I" attached to it (in ignorance and by ignorance) is no longer there. Or, the "I" has completely merged itself into the working Force and is one with it. What is conscious is not the personality or the individual I, but the Force of action.

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