WE have seen what the Mother means by aspiration. Another basic element of the spiritual way taught by her is sincerity, which she regards not only as a basic element, but as the leaven of all basic and essential elements of spiritual life. If there is one thing that can open all closed doors and lead straight to the highest spiritual achievements, it is sincerity and if there is one thing without which no substantial progress can ever be made and nothing abiding achieved, it is sincerity. A sincere aspiration, a sincere faith, a sincere prayer, a sincere endeavour, can never go in vain. Whatever the difficulties of the path, however long and arduous the journey, however feeble and faltering the steps of the traveller, if there is sincerity in him. God's Grace will surely lead him on, firing his being, fortifying his will, and replenishing his failing strength and courage.
What is sincerity ? It is certainly not one of those simple copy-book maxims taught by ethical and religious teachers. The Mother gives it an infinitely extended and profound connotation. Viewed in her light, sincerity appears to be one of the signal conquests to be made in sadhana. It takes the sadhaka long years of unrelaxed labour to establish a complete or integral sincerity in his being. It is not enough for him to be sincere in his mind or in his heart in a general way, he has to be sincere in every fibre and movement of his mind, in every feeling and emotion of his heart. But even this is not enough. He has to be sincere in all the parts of his being that are conscious, and also in all those that are not yet conscious. All that is subconscious or unconscious in him has to be raised into the light of consciousness and rendered consciously sincere, fully and joyously open to the object of the soul's seeking. Nothing in him, not even a cell of his body, must remain complacently entrenched in darkness and inertly indifferent or averse to the central aspiration of his being. It is only when all the Parts of his nature with all their numberless elements have
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become united with the soul in its aspiration for the Divine that he can be said to be sincere, integrally sincere. This integral sincerity is the sine qua non of the supramental transformation, which is the object of the Integral Yoga.
Speaking on sincerity, the Mother says :
"Sincerity is a most difficult thing to have, but it is also the most effective of things. If you have sincerity, you are sure of victory. But it must be true sincerity. Sincerity means that all the elements of your being, all-its movements, each and every one, from the most spiritual to the most physical, from the inmost to the outermost, from the topmost to the bottommost, all parts, severally and wholly and equally, are turned to the Divine, they ask for nothing else than the Divine, they live for and by the Divine.”¹
"And it is not an easy thing. To be sincere in a part, to be sincere on the whole, to be sincere at moments is easy enough; everybody can have or achieve that much. It is within the capacity of any human being with normal goodwill to be sincere in his psychic movements, even if these are rare. But to be sincere in the very cells of your physical body is a still rarer achievement. To make the body cells so one-pointed that they too feel they cannot live but for the Divine and in and through the Divine. That is true sincerity and that you must have.”²
We can see at once that not only all common ideas or notions of sincerity have been overpassed, but that a new, unprecedented depth and comprehensiveness have been given to the concept of sincerity. "To make the body cells so one-pointed that they too feel they cannot live but for the Divine and in and through the Divine” is a conception almost staggering to the mind of the sadhaka who has just started on the path of the Integral Yoga. How to make the cells of the body sincere, the cells we are not conscious of ? But those who have advanced a little know full well that, however difficult it may be, the conversion
¹ & ² The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, Part VII, by Nolini Kanta Gupta.
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of the cells and their global turning to the Divine is a crucial stage in the process of the integral self-surrender demanded by this Yoga. Sincerity can become complete and perfect only when there is nothing left in the being, nothing in any part or movement of the nature that is averse to the Divine or inertly irresponsive to His Love and Light.
But how to achieve this sincerity ? It is a matter not of theory or intellectual understanding, but of a single-minded and persistent practice. It is a matter of constant self-observation, constant self-correction and constant and trustful reliance on the divine Grace. For, as we advance in sadhana, we find that there are moments when, in spite of our best efforts, we feel we cannot take the next step forward—somewhere in the being a shadow hides a twist or a snag, and our consciousness fails to perceive it. It is at such crucial moments that our sincerity is put to the test. If we are sincere, the divine Grace removes the shadow and exposes to our view whatever has to be cast out of our nature or converted to its spiritual equivalent. What is indispensable is an unsleeping vigilance and a tireless practice.
"First you must observe that there is not a day in your life, not an hour, not even a minute when you have not got to rectify or intensify your sincerity...You will always find moments in your everyday life when you try to deceive yourself. Almost automatically you bring forward reasons in favour of whatever you do...The real test of sincerity, the very minimum of true sincerity lies here, in your reaction to a given situation, whether you can take automatically the right attitude and do exactly the thing to be done.”¹
This is only the rudimentary stage of sincerity. "...If you look into you with keener eyes, you will discover thousands of insincerities, more subtle, none the less seizable. Try to be sincere, occasions will multiply when you catch yourself insincere :
¹ The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, Part VII, by Nolini K,anta Gupta.
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you will know how difficult a thing it is.”¹ What one has to do is to persist in one's efforts to make all the parts of one's being . sincere, not by coercion—sincerity cannot come by coercion— but by casting more and more light upon the parts that are obscure and turned away from the Divine. "Even when you think you are sincere, there may be movements which are not quite straight, behind which, if you probe unflinchingly, you will find lurking something undesirable. Look to the little movements, thoughts, sensations and impulses that crowd the margin of your daily life; how many of them are fired with an aspiration towards something higher ?”² These little movements—the little thoughts that flit across your mind, the little feelings and emotions that ripple in and out of your heart, the little sensations, the little, fitful impulses that flicker and fade out in a twinkling—betray the elements of your nature that are still insincere, still attached to the old ways of life and nature. A clear perception, a firm and detached observation and analysis of all yourself, and a silent but intent aspiration for more and more light in the consciousness are the best means of removing the obstacles to the establishment of sincerity in the whole being. The difficulty of the task need not be discouraging, for, the Mother says, none can be wholly sincere all at once, the process must needs be progressive. All that is asked for is that there must be a resolute and perspicacious central sincerity steadily spreading to all the parts of the being, and uncompromising in its rejection of all insincerities.
It often happens that when there is some persistent insincerity in the being, suffering comes in some form or other to make us painfully aware of it, and compel us to grub it out. "If you discover anything clutching sticking somewhere in the depths, you must be ready to pluck it out, wholly erase it and see that no mark of it is left behind. Yes, sometimes you repeat your mistakes. You repeat them till your suffering becomes too acute to bear and compels you to be sincere in spite of yourself as it were." But this is "an arduous and tortuous way”, as the Mother says, this way of suffering. The sun-lit
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path of the psychic direction, the steady infiltration and permeation of the central sincerity is the better way, and much more speedily effective.
Sincerity makes it possible for the divine Grace to act directly and sovereignly. And when the Grace intervenes, it stimulates and accelerates the growth and infusion of sincerity in the whole being. Mountains of difficulties can be swept away in a trice by the Grace, which demands only one condition for its action—a sincere call and opening. "The Grace is equally for all. But each one receives it according to his sincerity. It does not depend on outward circumstances but on a sincere aspiration and openness.”¹
What are the enemies of perfect sincerity ? "The greatest enemies of a perfect sincerity,” says the Mother," are preferences (either mental, vital or physical) and preconceived ideas. It is these obstacles that must be overcome.”² Our preferences may be mental, vital or physical. They are nothing but selective likings, derived from habitual fancies, desires, automatic attractions, etc. They are basically irrational and arbitrary. Even our highest intellectual preferences are born of mental narrowness and conservatism. They preclude an unfettered approach to truth, a wide and equal reception of the touches of the world, and an impersonal, universal outlook. Our pre-conceived ideas are the constructions of our mental ignorance. They are no less arbitrary and irrational than our preferences, and stand stubbornly in the way of our being sincere to the Divine. They do not allow us to look at life in its entirety and indivisible unity, and accept the working of the divine Will within us and without in a tranquil spirit of faith and confidence. On the contrary, they induce us to challenge the divine working and doubt its wisdom. Cocksure of the correctness of our ideas and convictions, imprisoned in our preferences and prejudices, perpetually swaying between attractions and repulsions, we grope about in darkness for fragments of truth and catch only broken and distorted reflections of them. We
¹ Words of the Mother, yd. Series.
² Words of the Mother, 4th Series,
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are proud of our moral ideas and ideals. We want philosophy, religion, spirituality, all to conform to them. We never suspect that they are some of the worst barriers to our perception and reception of truth. How is sincerity possible in such a state of blinkered vision ? So long as we expect the working of the infinite Force to conform to our puny, mental standards and respect our callow, pretentious principles, we cannot be sincere to the Divine. It is, therefore, essential that we pull down all our mental constructions, make a clean sweep of all preferences and prejudices, break away from all attachments, expel all desires, oppose an unshakable equality to the insidious forces of attraction and repulsion, and learn to regard the world and all beings with the imperturbable calm of a wide, detached and impersonal consciousness, if we aspire to rise into the infinite freedom and all-comprehending knowledge of the divine existence. It is only in such serene, impersonal wideness that we can cultivate sincerity and call upon the Divine to liberate and transform our nature. Sincerity can develop only in the inner freedom and wideness of our being, and nothing can be so prejudicial to its growth as preferences and preconceived ideas—they cramp and stifle it.
It is our preferences and preconceived ideas again that make us complain of the conditions and circumstances of our life, if they do not happen to be quite to our liking or convenience. To complain of the difficulties of life is a kind of insincerity. It implies want of faith and confidence in the Divine. It is a common experience in spiritual life that our greatest conquests and achievements are almost always wrung out of the worst difficulties and obstacles. To complain and grumble is to lapse into doubt and darkness, and become unsteady. But, instead, if we quietly offer our difficulties to the divine Force, which is the dynamic aspect of divine Love, it will turn them into blessings, and help us derive from them the knowledge and strength needed for the next step forward. Sincerity requires a constant inner reference of all our experiences, happy or painful, to the divine Mother, so that she may turn them to good account for our transformation. Sincerity imparts
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to us the inner perception that, whatever the appearances may be, it is the divine Love that arranges from behind all the events and circumstances of our life in such a ,way that each of them is meant to conduce to our progress, if only we know how to face them with faith and confidence. To complain, to grumble, to be impatient is always a sign of insincerity.
The Mother associates transparency with sincerity. She says that one who is sincere cannot but be transparent. "When some one comes to me and I look at him, I look into his eyes, straight into his eyes. If the person is sincere, that is to say, transparent, I enter into him through his eyes and I see his soul clearly. But when I look and see in his eyes a cloud, and then a screen or continuing farther I meet a wall or something very black and when I find I have to pass through all that and drill holes at places to go through, even so at the last minute I am not sure if I do not stand against a bronze wall that refuses all entry, then in such cases I do not find the soul, and the person I can declare to be not sincere. Literally, such a person is not transparent.”¹ Sincerity abhors all camouflage and smoke-screen, and repels all tendency to dissimulation. It insists upon a perfect transparency of the whole being, and is the most powerful force for its harmonisation and integration. It calls forth the latent powers of our being and at the same time ensures the intervention of the divine Grace. "Sincere calls surely reach and receive an answer", says the Mother. "Those who are sincere, I can help and turn easily towards the Divine. But where there is insincerity I can do very little.”²
I have dwelt at some length on sincerity, for it is essential to understand what the Mother means by it and why she attaches to it the greatest importance. The Integral self- surrender that is demanded of the sadhaka of the Integral Yoga is impossible of achievement without an integral sincerity. And perfection in sincerity is victory itself, for, then, in the condition of perfect sincerity, it is the divine omnipotence that acts and achieves, and when the infinite divine Force
¹ The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, Part VIII, by Nolini Kanta Gupta,
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acts freely and sovereignly in a nature rendered transparent and receptive, what is there that is impossible to it ?
"When I say that if you are sincere you are sure of victory, I mean that kind of sincerity, whole and undivided: the pure flame that bums like an offering, the intense joy of existing for the Divine alone where nothing else exists, nothing has any meaning or reason for existence but in the Divine. Nothing has value or interest if it is not this call, this aspiration, this opening to the supreme Truth; all this that we call the Divine. You must serve the only reason for which the universe exists : take it away, all disappears.”¹
¹The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, Part VII, by Nolini Kanta Gupta.
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