The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 9

Section Four

The Mother on Herself

The Mother on Herself

(I)

You must be very very persevering. I will tell you a story—my own story.

When I began to practise occultism, as I started working with my nights, making them conscious, I found that between the subtle-physical level and the most material vital there was a small region, very small indeed, that was not developed well enough to serve as a conscious link between the two. So what happened in the most material vital was not being accurately translated into the consciousness of the most subtle physical. Something was lost in the passage which was however not quite empty but only half-conscious, not adequately developed. I knew there was only one way, namely, to go on working for the development. I started working sometime in February, I suppose. One month, two months, three, four months passed with no result. I continued. Five months, six months. Then in July or August I left my home in Paris for the

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country-side. I came to a very small place near the sea-side and stayed with friends. There was a garden there. And in the garden a fine green turf and flowers and trees all round. It was a pretty little quiet place. It was very quiet, very silent. One day I lay myself down on the grass, flat on the face resting on my elbows (among the grass). Suddenly the whole life of this nature, the whole life of the intermediate region I am speaking of, which is most living in the plant and in physical nature, all this domain became all on a sudden, unexpectedly, without any transition, absolutely living, intense, conscious, wonderful. This was the result of the continuous activity of six months that did not give any result till then. I did not know it; just a little favourable condition and the result is there. It is like the chick in the egg. It is there for a long time but you do not see it. You ask doubtfully if there is any chick at all inside the egg. And then suddenly" a crack, a small hole—the egg bursts and the chick comes out, quite formed and whole and entire. It took all this time to form itself. So it is like this. When you wish to prepare something within you it is like the preparation of the chick inside the shell. It takes a long time and there is not the least result. But you must not be discouraged. You must

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continue your effort, as before, regularly as if the whole eternity were before you, thoroughly disinterested in the result. One day the result bursts upon you, the whole result of all your work.

(2)

When I look at people and when I am occupied with them, I have the will—I do not say it is always possible — anyhow, I have the will to see in them their psychic being, their ideal, what they want to do, what they want to become, to hold it and bring it out to the surface. That is all my work. What I see, I try to draw to the front. When I do this, apart from a very few instances when people are somewhat conscious, I am not always sure of the kind and degree of their external consciousness. And when I put questions to someone, it is to know the difference between what he is conscious of and what I see. I am doing this all the while. And that is why it seems as if I did not know.

There is a vast difference between what you know of yourself and what I know of you. What I know of you is evidently what you ought to become. Your external being one can see well.

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But between that and the inner being that I see there is the vital-mental region which is the most important thing from the human point of view; for what one has to become must be repeated there first, if it is to be materialised. But as I say, the gap is wide between what you know of yourself, what is actively conscious in you and what you are in the truth of your being. This intermediary region is somewhat difficult for me to be familiar with or comprehend : for it is a cloudy region for me, a domain of falsehood. You must note the distinction between a lie and a falsehood. A lie is that which is altogether unreal, which has not been, which is not there. A falsehood is that which is not true, in the sense that it is not the expression of your truth— not at all—and yet, it is that of which you are mostly externally conscious. Very very few are there who have the inner perception of what they want to become, what they want to do, what the truth of their being is. There are not many of that kind. For some, the thing comes and is then veiled —just a lightning flash for a moment and then all is dark. For me it is a perpetual question to know what is the state of the superficial consciousness which is for me so unreal, so untrue. There is such a contradiction between the

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brutal fact of the daily activity and this image I make to myself of what everyone of you should be: I keep this image always intact by all the power of my consciousness so that you may realise it. That is yourself, your own self. It is not this ignorant, stupid, insincere, dishonest being thatyou call yourself.

(3)

Once upon a time, long long ago, when I was in Paris, I used to see Madame D. N. almost daily. She was full of ideas and told me : "You should not think of action, it means attachment to action. When you want to do something it indicates that you are still tied to the things of the world". I answered : "No, nothing is more easy. You have only to imagine all that has been done before, all that will be done hereafter and all that is being done now, you will immediately perceive that your action is nothing but a breath, one second in eternity and you are no longer attached to it". I did not know the text of the Gita at that time. And I had not the complete text, the text that I am here putting somewhat in my own way: "And detached from the fruit of action, act". I did not know the Gita, but what I said

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was in effect what the Gita taught. You should act not because you believe in your action. You act because you should act. That is all. It is however a condition that may prove dangerous sometimes. For instead of willing with a sovereign will to action you simply look and let things happen.

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