Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine

Lecture XIII

Chap. 24. Matter

Chap. 25. The Knot of Matter

Chap. 26. The Ascending Series of Substance

We were dealing with Matter and how it is related to an Omnipresent Reality. It is not a world of chance or accident even though to our mind it wears the appearance of an inconscience. The world of mind, of life, of matter—the human, the animal and vegetable and the material world— even though so different and disparate is not without an Ordering Reality. The whole universe seems, then, to be the veiled working of an Omnipresent Reality. And Matter which seems to be the categorical refusal of the Spirit, the last term nearest to the Nescience, is itself the working of the Omnipresent Reality, to reach its vast ends using a secret Consciousness and Will which is the master of its own complex action.

Consciousness presenting itself to its own self-awareness as an object of cognition is substance. Between Matter and Spirit there is a vast practical difference. When cosmic mind is presented with the substance, it turns it at the end into atomic division by its dividing faculty. This form of substance—which we called Matter—which the mind senses is nothing else than the original divine principle of Infinite Being—Satchidananda. Matter is a form of force, force of Conscious-being. The Consciousness there is concealed. Even the delight of being is there concealed; it offers itself to the consciousness concealed in it as an object of sensation. This delight of being offers itself to the concealed consciousness as object of sensation in order to tempt the hidden godhead to come out of is secrecy.

Sri Aurobindo has taken these three chapters (24-27) to

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explain the constitution of Matter in the scheme of bis vision. He takes note of the sharp division between Matter and Spirit. That is the normal perception of man. A oneness which is indivisible generates infinite variety in this cosmos, in this universe. There is unity which is inalienable or indivisible, a unity which cannot be abrogated by anything; that seems to be at work and it generates infinite variety. That is the first step. Then the second step of the cosmic creation that we notice is the constant reconciliation behind apparent division, a struggle combining all possible, separate or disparate elements, to reach some vast end. It seems to be the working of some secret consciousness though outwardly, it wears the aspect of struggle and division. Struggle and division seem to be the only operating principles and yet the universe has emerged out of the infinite, unity creating an infinite variety. That is the second aspect. The third aspect must be of will and consciousnes fulfilling themselves trium-phandy in a harmony. It would be, he says, the emergence of the will and consciousness which are operating there in that world, triumphantly creating a harmony. That should be the third stage.

On one end you take Matter, on the other end you take the Spirit. Both are connected by substance. Substance connects the two ends of existence, Matter and Spirit, because substance is the form of Conscious Existence. Matter here is substance of form of the conscious existence. Now, in this chapter, Sri Aurobindo explains that though there is a vast practical difference in the forms yet substance is one. Substance is Conscious Existence presenting itself to the self as object. Substance is conscious existence presenting itself as object to our sense, or to universal sense. It does so in order to establish a sense-relation so that a world may be created. Conscious existence as substance presents itself to the sense, becomes an object. And when it becomes an

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object it becomes also possible to establish a sense relation with the object. And when various sense relations are established it becomes a world of relationships. It becomes a cosmos. If it remained undifferentiated unity then there would be no world. So that substance presenting itself to the consciousness as object and establishing a sense relation brings the world as we know it into being. But this relation is not of one type. There is an ascending series of substance : there is pure-mind-substance, life-substance, spirit-substance, and what men call physical or material substance. There is substance of truth-consciousness, and Satchidananda substance. So that substance connects Spirit and Matter, the two ends of the whole rung of existence. It is really a series of substance ascending from Matter to Spirit.

Q: Is there a sharp line between the vital and the mental or is it a gradual fading from one to another ?

A : Always it shades from one to another. We make these distinctions only for our minds to understand clearly. Really speaking it is like a wave, in which each element melts into the other without a sharp division. We make a division because we are dealing with mind and mind is the instrument of division. It is the ignorance of our mind that requires explanation. It can't be helped. Mind is division and therefore we have to divide what is indivisible, really speaking, because the substance is only one. But our mind says : "then it can't be many." But it is many; so varied is the manifestation that the extent of worlds of substance is unimaginable. Take only the substance on the life-plane. How varied is its manifestation ? Similarly substance of mind... .And yet it is one substance. To the mind it is baffling. But that is the truth and mind has to learn it. Mind has to learn that what is contrary to it is, perhaps, the truth. Truth is where the contradictions of the mind meet. Truth is not

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to be found in rigid divisions of the mind. So that one has to teach the mind to put its contraries together and reconcile them in a greater consciousness. Mind says there cannot be many. Then you say, let me put one and many together; where the two meet without contradicting is the realm of the Truth. Take activity and passivity which cannot be conceived together by the mind; a plane of consciousness on which activity and passivity can be together. That is the realm of the truth. The mind divides, the truth unites and reconciles. Now there, is pure mind substance, pure spirit substance, pure life substance or pure material substance and beyond this conscious manifestation there is possibility of no substance. Then there is no universe. It is conceivible that there is no substance, somewhere. Where there is no substance then there is no world. Material substance, vital substance, mental substance, spiritual substance, all this is one Substance but in actual working it lends itself to all kinds of demarcation or difference. There is a series which seems to descend from Spirit to Matter and again tries, to rise from Matter to Spirit,—from the bottom to the top. So that the series of substance seems to lend itself to our concept of division. Now of all this series, of the process of, what to our mind appears as, descent and ascent the supreme Brahman or Infinite is the Substance. This Substance is the consciousness-force of the infinite, presenting itself as a form. Taking up a form, so to say, to its own self. That is the true substance. Satchidananda or Brahman, is the Substance. Then what is supermind ? Supermind is, as Sri Aurobindo puts it "unmentalized matter". It is unmentalized substance or unmentalized spiritual substance. It is substance but it is not yet rendered in terms of mind. Matter or life or mind or supermind—they are nothing else but modes of the Brahman, modes of the infinite and the Eternal Brahman is the material and the sole material of cosmos.

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Now when the mind looks at it, matter seems to be completely cut off from the spirit, though it is one series of substance which is pervading from the inconscient to the supraconscient. To the mental view there is a division. If that is so—what is the solution? Is it to merge into the spirit substance again? Insistance on the spirit as the highest substance and rejection of matter which seems to be, to the mind, fallen substance, or substance which is divided from the spirit, would seem to be the solution. Besides, even a view of life as lived by men seems to the mind a world of suffering, limitation, division, conflict, imperfection and death. Not only is matter the lowest substance but even when life takes hold of matter we find that life becomes gross, limited by physical organisms, then it becomes subject to pain and subject to death. So the ascent of substance from matter to life does not seem to help very much. When the substance that is matter takes up mind, then mind becomes incapable, "half-blind", looses its freedom, its wings are clipped, its feet are tied to the earth. Matter is mind, life is animal grossness, mind is rendered impotent. Now this view that acceptance of the substance of matter, by life or by mind, or by mind and life together, subjects the higher substance of life and mind to cramping limitations, is the experience of the mental being.

Therefore mind wants to take up the attitude that ultimate wisdom lies in rejecting matter—rejecting physical existence or the material world or the plane of matter. This, Sri Aurobindo believes, is not correct and holds that it is not the integral and ultimate wisdom. To take up this attitude as the last word of wisdom because life or mind are limited in their operations when they are encased in matter would not be the correct solution. It may be the first reaction of mind because to mind matter is ignorance at its height. The acme of ignorance is matter; it does not know, because it has no mind.

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Matter is blind and inconscient, it creates and destroys indiscriminately; powerful storms, sudden earthquakes, irresistible tornadoes—are its indiscriminate workings. It does not care; because it has no heart. Not only it has no mind, it has no heart. Then the difficulty that mind encounters is, that out of this matter which has no mind, mind has come into being. And this is "a pitiless miracle," in the language of the LifeDivine. Because man is the representative of this mind, he struggles helplessly as an individual and, a little more powerfully, collectively against this colossal ignorance. That is what happens actually when out of this no-mind, mind appears. And this "heartless Inconscient" slowly gives rise to hearts "which are tortured by blind cruelty". So, the heartless inconscient gives rise to hearts. This clutch of ignorance even after mind has appeared, is terrible. All the instruments of Man's nature—his mind, life and body —are determined by matter. All the instruments by which the spirit, encased in matter, has to work, are limited by matter and its opposition to the spirit. Material substance of which they are made obstructs their free working. It imposes bondage to mechanical laws. And this matter itself is colossal inertia. It does not move, though it is itself infinite motion. Science affirms that in a stone every particle is moving at the speed of light. So that matter itself though powerfully active, is inconscient, is moved by mechanical force. When this inconscience embodies life or mind, it allows life and mind to change it a little. It allows life or mind to make a little modification or change in its inertia or inconscience. To a very small measure inertia does respond to the demand of mind or life but prevents a total conquest of ignorance. And this is because matter is the principle of division carried to the last point. The basis of action of matter therefore is division. That is why the conquest is not allowed to alter the principle of which division

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is not the basis. Thus we have seen that matter brings to the human being limitations of his bodily, vital and mental existence, and therefore the pessimistic theory that this basis will not change seems rational to the mind. There will always be matter. We cannot do anything with matter; we should make the best of this terrible condition in which we are somehow compelled to be. And the best is to live for sometime and accept that ignorance and ego, limitations, divisions, difficulty, strife, struggle, suffering are the laws because matter is the basis. And it will not allow mind and vitality or life-force to conquer it. The conclusion, therefore, is that the world is a world of eternal mechanical laws and those laws will not change. So there is no possible escape for man out of the inevitable laws of matter. That is how the pessimistic spirit justifies the conclusion that the world will remain what it is; any attempt to change it is vanity, "All is vanity and vexation of the spirit". Therefore, reject this world either as an error of the inconscient force or an error of the infinite.

But Sri Aurobindo says it is mind that has created this division; this matter is not created by mind. Division is created by the mind but matter is not created by mind. We have seen that matter is nothing else but a form of the Infinite being, consciousness and delight. Then what is the relation between sense,—as developed in life and mind,— and substance ? Is the present relation the only relation between sense and substance ? Our mind says that the present relation is the eternal law, the fixed formula of life is that matter will remain matter. But we know that states of matter other than the known exist and so there is no reason to suppose that the present relation between sense and substance, as represented by matter, is binding. Is the relation between substance and sense bound by the present form of mental consciousness ? That is the problem. Even material states exist which man has not yet perceived, and so there is no reason to suppose that the present knowledge and possibility

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of matter is binding on the spirit. An ascending series of gradations of substance is possible in which matter would accept the law of the higher rung of the series of substance. Substance being one, from one end of existence to the other, the end of matter could accept the law of the other higher phase of the same substance. The only thing that can prevent it is the present view of matter taken by man. It can stand against this view and prevent man's supreme fulfilment by insisting all the time that matter must remain matter. But there is no intrinsic reason to suppose that the material form of substance is unchangeable. Material form of substance can open to higher series of substance and be influenced by it, be moulded by it. Theoretically there is no reason to believe that matter must remain what it is to our senses. The relation between matter and the present life and man's mind and his sensations is a particular equation. Sri Aurobindo says that there is no reason to suppose that this equation is the last. And that brings us to the 26th chapter where the ascending series of substance is treated. The ascending series of substance, is like one straight line but it is an ascending line. Matter in the series of substance is influenced by life, partly now; it is influenced by mind, partly now. It is man who embodies in him the three series of mental substance, vital and physical substance. He holds in himself the first possibility of opening the higher series of substance. He creates the first possibility in which the spirit-substance can act directly upon this material substance. There is no instrument, there is no channel through which the higher series of substance can act directly on matter. Man is the instrument who embodies in him this possibility of direct action. The descending power of the supramental substance can act upon the triple series of mental, vital and physical substance embodied in man and change it. What is it that we call matter ? What are

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the qualities of matter ? Sohdity. Matter is something which is felt as solid, tangible; matter is a form that responds to touch. The more subtle a thing becomes, the less material it appears to us. The ancient people also called this earth the material principle and they said that touch is the basis of all sensation. Sense essentially means touch. You touch by the eyes, you touch by the ears; you touch by the skin, touch is a fundamental sense. Sensation means touch, that is contact. So form is the basis of contact or touch. All sense means, basically, contactual sense. From earth to ether is from gross to subtle according to the Sankhya philosophy. From ether to earth would be from subtle to gross. It is all one substance, "one material substance" one can say. Of all substance form is the basis. All forms are concentrations of some energy or force; then they offer resistance to outer touch; there is mutual impenetrability of form; each has a distinct separate existence, there is a division. Form cannot exist unless there is some delimitation of the infinite,—of the formless. Form means concentrating something at one point; form has the capacity to resist any destructive or disturbing element. A form cannot penetrate into another because each must always retain its identity; therefore it has an individuality or separateness. Now, matter is the limit of divisibility because it is made up of infinitesimal particles,—atoms and others. Therefore atom is the last form of material substance. When you reach the limit of divisibihty, you reach the end of substance called Matter. Matter is one end of substance,—Spirit is the other end. You take a form. The form is not durable. Then you ask : What is it that is durable ? Then you know that the essence of the form is durable. It is eternal. "Away from durability of form we draw towards eternity of essence." Essence of the form is that which embodies itself in the form. When form is dissolved, where does it go ? Things are indestructible.

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If you take something formed of a material element and you dissolve the form, the form will be dissolved into essence and the essence is eternal. Essence houses itself into the form, and it becomes available to our contact or sense in the form. Form therefore gives an occasion for the essence to house itself in it and manifest a quality, a power, that is there. Form gives the essence an opportunity to bring into manifestation through sensation a quality which without form could not have been known. Without form one cannot satisfy one's thirst for water, even though one may have the highest consciousness, because the substance must take the form of water in order to satisfy the thirst of the human body. Away from persistent separation, you draw to a height of a divine poise in infinity and unity. If you move away from the resistance of Matter you draw towards the divisibility of the Spirit. So, there is a line from the gross substance to the spirit substance.' Therefore substance seems to expand or extend itself. It is our mind that divides the one indivisible substance into gross-substance and spirit-subtance. During evolution gross substance moving to-toward the spirit-substance has ended in Mind and there is the problem. Physical existence of man, or mind's physical existence, is subjected to mutual resistance, division, death, between masses of same life-force. But this rhythm which now prevails is not the only possible rhythm that man can experience. In the present physical constitution of the universe, there is an ascending scale of substance from the gross to the subtle. Even now there is a gradation of matter. We see that in the gradation matter and material force seem to be the last result of pure substance in which consciousness is lost. Material universe is less than the subtle states of which it is the result. We see material universe but we do not notice or sense the vaster subtle universe of which it is the result. Subtler states and gradations of

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substance correspond to the ascending stages of matter, life and mind, going up to the supermind and Satchidananda.

Now sense-life and thought on earth, start by obeying —as we saw—the law of the earth,—the law of the substance of matter; and they accommodate themselves to new development but they have all the time to take count of the basis of matter. So that, limitation of the physical instrument to the sense of the nervous system to life, corporeal body to the mind, all these act as limitations. Essentially, sense, life and mind, in their own constitution, are free. If you take mind as an independent principle,—not mind manifested in life, then mind has subliminal range and is cosmic and free. But mind, manifested in evolution, is limited. Sense, for instance—universal sense,—is free but sense manifested here in man or in life is limited, because of the limitations of gross matter. That is how telepahty, clairvoyance, and other occult phenomena are possible not because of matter but because of the freedom of mind and sense. Mind and sense are fundamentally free. That is why whey can act independently of physical organism. And when they so act, we get what are called miraculous or occult phenomena. That is nothing else but the assertion of freedom of vital being and mental being, even when it is manifested in terms of matter. Life and mind, acting freely without depending upon instrumentation or organs that are provided by matter, produce what we call the occult or miraculous phenomena. Sri Aurobindo points out that substance is not bound to be always limited by the limitations of matter which at present seem to be operating on the spirit embodied in life, mind and matter. The Spirit manifests itself in a series of gradations of substance. In the manifestation of the universe, the present limitation to which mind and life are subjected in their substance, is not final and binding. Because even now we see the influence or impact of the other gradations of substance

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on the level of mind, on the level of life and even on the plane of matter. It is not the sense-organs that create sense perception; only cosmic sense creates sense organism. The nervous system does not create life; it is cosmic life-force which creates the nervous system for its own work. Brain does not create thought but brain is the result of cosmic mind trying to prepare for it an instrument for action in the cosmos. So what obtains is not the fundamental law, but a constituted principle "adopted by the intention of the spirit to involve itself in a world of matter". To evolve a world of matter this is a construction which is adopted intentionally by the spirit.

The next grade of substance is life. We have seen how matter operates. Now we will try to see how life operates. When the life-substance acts in its freedom, then desire is its dominating law. And on the plane of life it determines all the facts of vital plane on the basis of desire and impulse. There matter is not allowed to intervene. Independent of material life, if you can conceive of life plane—where matter is not indespensable to life,—there life acts on impulse and desire. There it is not limited by matter at all. So that a spirit in the vital world, can have hunger which is practically insatiable. And there desire is not limited by the formula of material substance. There is no limit because there is no physical body to limit its working. We see something of it when a human being is possessed by some of these vital beings. It is said that Rasputin, the Russian monk, used to drink for the whole night and yet not get drunk. He remained conscious and normal which shows that the vital substance can impress itself upon the physical. There can be an intervention of a pure vital being, on the plane of matter. Even matter is made sufficiently plastic to manifest powers which are absolutely against the normal operation of its so-called laws. Take the third organisation of substance,—the sub-

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stance of mind; it is very subtle and flexible and is capable of being manipulated by other minds. One can influence somebody's mind straight, without any channel of communication. That is how an evolved being can help some other being by changing the condition of the mind if there is an opening and a relation.

Is it possible to bring the world of supramental substance, and of Satchidananda in contact with the world of material substance, just as the world of mind-substance, and vital-substance has been? Planes or worlds of divine substance, like the supramental and the Satchidananda, do exist, though they are not yet a part of earth-nature. This cosmic existence as a whole is a very complex harmony. It is not limited to one plane, to one particular substance. The universe in which we live is a complex play of many substances. And man experiences some of the substances, and the forces of substance descend and ascend. In the present universe we see that the universes of substance interpenetrate one another. Mind influences life, life influences matter as matter influences both mind and life. There is a cross play of this complex substances in the universe. It is a complex harmony not limited to one particular substance and the substances seem to be ascending and descending like a many-runged ladder. It is a ladder with many steps. At each step a vast self-extension of the Infinite or the One takes place. Each step is a world or a universe. On the plane of mind there is a mental world. On the earth there is a mental life. So that mind is not limited to human beings only. On each step a vast self-extension of the One seems to take place,—the more subtle, the more powerful, more penetrating, more effective. Each step is not isolated from the rest. Therefore our very material existence and substance is a complex play in its design and pattern of the spirit. In this one principle, matter, all the other principles of substances have entered in the

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process of descent. Material world is a result of all the other worlds. The last world of descent becomes therefore the first world of ascent. When one reaches the last point of division, that point begins the first step of the ascent, backward to the spirit. Why does it become the first step of ascent ? Because all the possibilities and potentialities of all other substances are involved in the substance of matter. And the when division has reached the last point the evolution begins because the substance begins to manifest that which is involvedin it. Therefore material being does not stop with gases, suns, nebulae and systems of atoms, and aggregations only, but evolves life. If matter was only matter life would not have come out of it. Therefore it evolves mind, and is bound to evolve the Supermind, because that also is involved in matter. Evolution comes by the unceasing pressure of the supramaterial planes on the material and from below a kindred pressure. Material principle wants to free the involved substance; the free substance exerts pressure on the material substance to evolve what is involved in it. As a result of the double pressure, the higher principles, the higher substances go on manifesting in our universe, which is a complex harmony. The higher can descend and manifest itself, here, but then an instrument would be needed. And Sri Aurobindo says man is the instrument because he is one who holds in himself,—material substance, vital substance, mental substance. Man brings the whole evolved powers of the cosmos to a point; and his substance does not end with the body. A more perfect physical body, also, can be evolved if man admits the possibility. The body cannot be denied the possibility of changing into a higher substance than matter.

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Questions and Answers

Q: You gave the example of Rasputin, the Russian Monk; was he possessed by some vital being?

A. I think it was not a case of mere possession but perhaps that of an incarnation of some vital being. It may be that of a vampire.

Q: Is not the presence of a Divine Principle admitted in the past ?

A. Yes. The admission of the divine principle has never been in doubt by people who believed in it. A divine principle and all-pervading divine element has been admitted. Then two or three questions arise. First, what is man to do with it? And then how to proceed about it and when you come in contact with it what is the form that it is going to take or should take in the present world? In the past they had a very vague idea about these questions. For instance, they speak of the Kingdom of Heaven; but we have no clear idea of the perfection it implies. Here in Sri Aurobindo you find the explanation of creation by an Omnipresent Reality. How it organises or can organise itself as the Truth-Consciousness and how in the Truth-Consciousness all knowledge and will is indivisible and how harmony works. That is the truth-world—the perfect world. To the question how our world come out of it, Sri Aurobindo gives a satisfactory explanation. The explanation given by Sri Aurobindo is unrivalled in the world of philosophy. He understood the problem of pain and explained it and also pointed out a way out of it. Why is his explanation different from that of Gautama Buddha ? No comparison or competition is implied; the Light in the past has served man and continues to do it. Our effort is not to go back to the past; we can't. What has been done has been assimilated, has been achieved. What good had

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to be done, has been done. Now we cannot bring those remedies and apply them today because it would not work. It is not a question of disrespect for anyone. We have full respect for the past incarnations because they are divine and so we respect them, we evoke their help so far as it can be of help in the present conditions, but the highest help that one can have in his mind, in his vital life, in his individual life, in his collective life today, is from a Light like Sri Aurobindo, because he gives you the full expanded view of that perfect world; its relation with this world; then the way to reach it; the way to bring it down. He explains what form it is likely to take—all in details. Nobody else has ever worked it out like that; not even in the Upanishads which are regarded as sources of wisdom in India. It is no disrespect to the Upanishads to say that they did not speak about things that Sri Aurobindo deals with. We have to look forward to the future, not look back to the past. We have to take all the gains of the past with us and go ahead. Generally men regard the past as always more perfect than the present.

Q: If you go to heaven then you have to create one, right?

A. No. It is not a question of going to heaven. The problem is how to bring heaven or perfection here in this world. Sri Aurobindo says that the problem can be solved here only, because in the perfect world above there is no problem, imperfection is not there.

Q: Virgin birth throughout the ages. I never believed in any explanation of it; how it could occur ?

A. Virgin birth is not to be taken literally; it is a symbol. The conception of the world takes place beyond mind. Shakti—the Virgin—creates directly out of the spiritual consciousness, without resorting to any material medium. Even in spiritual life, even now, the Guru who is the guide

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helps the disciple by giving him a second birth. And the second birth is an inner birth, not an outer birth.

Q: It is said in the Bible that we must be born again.

A. Yes, that's true. And the second birth is an inner birth and not an outer birth. The second birth takes place when you awaken to your spiritual possibilities. Till one is not awakened to the idea of spiritual life, or of realizing God one is only physically born. When one awakens to the inner need of spiritual life that is the second birth.

Q: Does that second birth come at the meeting, right at the beginning of the meeting, of the Guru or does it come all the way through?

A. No, the second birth comes when the soul of the individual perceives the necessity of outliving the present attractions of life, the ordinary way of life,—career, money, fame, family, and all that. Now, when he sets the growth of his inner being as his aim, that is the second birth. Then he may meet his Guru afterwards, who can effectively give him the second birth, because one is not easily able to take second birth himself fully. He can feel the necessity of a birth, like a child trying to want to be born but must be helped to be born, and it is the Guru who helps him to be born by an inner conception, so to say. The consciousness of the Guru is like a mother. It bears the soul of the disciple and then gives it back to him. But that is an inner process.

Q: When you speak of Guru are you speaking of your higher self?

A. Yes, your own higher self in a way, whom you can meet in a human person.

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Q: You don't always meet... ?

A. No. You may not always meet but he is always there, the inner guide. The guru is always there, the higher self of man. You may identify and meet him in a human person. That also happens and then you can recognize him. Then it is not his human nature that will gude you. People mistake when they see a guru and judge him as quite an ordinary person like any other man. But his mind and outer being does not guide; it is the inner consciousness that guides. That is a truth very difficult for the modern mind to understand.

Q: Didn't Sri Aurobindo say in his Synthesis of Yoga that it is possible for the person to contact the spirit of truth within his own self?

A. Yes, the guru is in the heart, the inner guru, he is the inner guide. The true guru is in the heart. He is always there. Sri Aurobindo has clearly said that the guru is within. All people cannot contact or awaken this guru within; so they meet the guru outside. The guru outside is not ruled out because it is your inner guru whom you meet outside. The guru is your own highest self.

Q: Well, there is no outside, in a way. There is no outside— it doesn't make so much difference.

A. Yes. If you put this question to yourself: Suppose I want to become perfect, or become like God, how would I be like ? Then you meet somebody and you say, "Oh, It is like him that I would like to be. That's all. There you have met your guru. He may not be perfect but he satisfies your need of that perfection that you see and that is the spirit, at work. If he is also humanly perfect, well, it is more easy to accept him but even with imperfections the guru is felt within the consciousness. You accept that consciousness —"this is right."

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Q: It is difficult to the western mind to worship a person, embodied soul, as a guru. In India I think that is usual. But here it is unusual. It is difficult for people here to accept this idea, even.

A : Yes. In one sense it is good and in another sense it is bad. It is good in the sense that you don't easily submit your personality to somebody else who might not be as perfect as you imagine him to be; it removes superstitions, it prevents you from resigning your judgment and your common sense, sometimes, and so on. It prevents many faults. But the mind refuses to recognize the guru manifest in a body, or even the Divine incarnated in a human person. Mind has got the set idea that no human being can be Divine. So, even when He is there man refuses to accept him. There are so many notions about the Divine, in the mind; it almost would seem as if mind was dictating to the Divine. If the Divine heard it He would say, "Well, my dear fellow, leave me some freedom. I must also be able to put limits to myself if I want to, why not ? Why should I do what you want me to do everytime ? I must do sometimes what I want to do. If I want to take up a human body, why not ?" The mind goes on insisting—"You can't" !!

Q : We are taught this so often in Sunday schools that God is like an old man with a beard in the clouds, it is difficult to get away from that idea—that all people are imperfect and anyone who says differently is a big fool.

A : Yes. The Gita puts it in the mouth of Krishna in this way: "Fools or idiots do not take cognisance of Me or rather disregard Me when I have taken up a human body."

Q : Also it seems easier for us to conceive of a father, to worship a father, to conceive of father or the male consciousness than to express the ideal of a mother.

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A : Rather, it is easier to think of the creator as the mother and the creation as the child. It is a more organic, more natural, intense and very happy relation and also a dynamic relation. You can't imagine a more dynamic relation than of a mother and her child. The universe is the child. The creation is the child of the creatrix and she is very anxious that it should be perfect, that it should be good, that it should be marvellous. Well, that is what every mother wants her child to be. Children always prefer the mother to the father.

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