The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 7

The Divine Suffering

Generally speaking, when one is unhappy, it is one more suffering added to the collective suffering of the Divine. The Divine acts upon Matter in a state of deep compassion: this compassion is translated in Matter and is figured there by what we call Psychic Sorrow. It is, as it were, a reversed image of the original reality.

The Divine's compassion, translated in the individual physical consciousness, becomes a sorrow that is not egoistic, a sorrow that is an expression of one's identification with the universal sorrow through sympathy. I have described the experience at some length in one of the Prayers and Meditations. I spoke there of "the sweetest tears that I shed in life"; for those tears were not for my sake, I was not weeping for myself. In almost every case man grieves for egoistic reasons, in the human way. Whenever anyone loses a person he loves, he suffers and weeps, not over the condition of the person: in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred or even more, people do not know in what condition the person gone may be, they do not and cannot know if the person is happy or unhappy, if he is sufferingor is in peace. It is the sense of separation that causes the grief, the feeling that he will not be with them any more which they so much wish. At the root of all human sorrow, there lies this return upon one's own self, more or less conscious, more or less

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admitted. But when you feel unhappy for the unhappiness of others, there comes in a mixture. That is to say, to your personal grief is added a psychic element which I described as the reversed image of the Divine Compassion. Now, if you can distinguish between the two, the personal anguish and the disinterested sorrow, come out of what is egoistic and concentrate upon the divine element, make yourself one with it, then you can in that way come in contact with the great universal compassion, which is something immense, vast, calm, mighty, profound, which is perfect peace and infinite Bliss. If you know then how to enter into your suffering, go down to the very bottom of it, pass beyond the portion that is egoistic and personal, go farther on, then you arrive at the door of a wonderful revelation. Not that you should seek suffering for the sake of the suffering and in order to have the experience; but when it is there, when it has come upon you, then try what I have suggested, cross the border, the barrier of egoism in your suffering: note first where is the egoistic part, what is it that makes you suffer, what is the egoistic reason of your suffering, then step across and beyond, towards something universal, towards a greater principle. You enter then into the vast, the infinite compassion, the door of the Psychic opens for you. If, in that domain, you see me in tears, as you say you did in your dream, then you can identify yourself with me at the moment, enter into those tears as it were, melt into them. That will open the door and it will bring you an experience, a very unique experience

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that leaves always a deep mark upon the consciousness. It is never blotted out altogether even if the door closes again and you become once more what you are in your ordinary movements. That experience, that mark remains behind and you can recall it, go back to it, refer to it in your moments of concentration. You feel then the immensity of an infinite sweetness, a great peace, pervading all your being, it is not in your thought only; it goes out and sympathises with everything and can cure everything.

Only you must sincerely wish, you must have the will, to be cured. Everything lies there. Now I always come back to the same theme. You must be sincere. If you want an experience for the sake of the experience and, once you have it, to go back to your ordinary ways, that will not do. You must sincerely will to be cured—cured precisely of the ordinary ways—you must have the aspiration, the true aspiration to overcome the obstacle, to mount up and up, above and beyond yourself, so that you may drop all that pulls you back, drags you down, to break all limits, clarify and purify yourself, rid yourself of all that lies in your way. If you have this will, the true intense will not to fall back into past errors, to rise out of obscurity and ignorance towards the light, shorn of all that is human, too human—too small, too ignorant —then that will and that aspiration shall act, act gradually, strongly and effectively bringing you a complete and definitive result. But beware, there must be nothing that clings to the old movements, that does not declare itself

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but hides its head and when the occasion is opportune puts up its snout.

So I say you must be truly sincere, very truly. If you discover anything clutching, sticking somewhere in the depths, you must be ready to pluck it out, wholly erase it and see no mark of it is left behind. Yes, sometimes you repeat your mistakes. You repeat till your suffering becomes too acute to bear and compels you to be sincere in spite of yourself as it were. But you need not try that line. It is a method, but a bad method: bad, because it destroys so many things, wastes so much energy, leaves such wrong vibrations. In the intensity of your suffering you do discover the will towards perfect sincerity. But you can be sincere also in less arduous and tortuous a way.

There is a moment in the life of every one, there is a moment when this need of perfect sincerity comes as a matter of ultimate choice. There is a moment in the life of the individual and there is a moment in the life of the group also to which the individual belongs, when that choice has to be made, the final purification has to be performed. It is a question then almost of life and death, the progress has to be made if one is to survive.

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