YOGIC ACTION
alone, it becomes a luminous channel for the outpouring of His Grace and glory upon earth.
III
"What action should I do and what should I refrain from doing ?" "What work will best help my self-offering and deliver me from my desires and attachments ?" "What kind of service will be acceptable to the Divine ?" These are some of the problems which often besiege and perplex the Karmayogin at the outset of his spiritual career. There is an aspiration in him, a sincerity, a faith, a fervid, if somewhat flurried, will to self- surrender, what is lacking is knowledge,—knowledge not only of the precise nature and implications of his goal, but also of the path, its ups and downs, its mazes and meanderings, its pitfalls and blind alleys. Mere goodwill cannot be, in the be- ginning at least, a guarantee of perfect immunity. Experience has to be purchased, knowledge to be acquired, at the price of many an error and stumble. But most of these errors can well be avoided if the Yogin can avail himself, from the start, of the guidance of a Guru, a knower of the path and the goal. Because he has trodden the path and arrived at the goal, the Guru can be trusted to lead him, pointing out the pitfalls and protecting him from the visible and invisible attacks.
Still a certain amount of knowledge is essential, for, without a little light in the consciousness, the spiritual adventure may end in a dismal shipwreck. The long passage between the human mind and infinite Consciousness is full of dangers and difficulties, and it is inadvisable to dare to traverse it by the sheer strength of one's will or the ardours of one's heart. The Gayatri, the famous hymn of the Hindus, is a prayer for light in the consciousness, and many verses of the Upanishads too invoke and evoke the same light—"dhi". It is this initial light that makes for the right reception and proper assimilation of the teachings of the Guru and a confident surrender to his guidance. It is from this standpoint of the fostering of the light that Swaddhyaya, the concentrated musing on the sacred teachings, is so
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much enjoined upon the followers of the spiritual path. It is, therefore, with an aspiration for this light—the light that leads, the light that watches and warns, and lifts and consoles us when we "fall upon the thorns of life and bleed"—that we turn to the gracious words of the Mother. These words, or rather sparks shot from the brazier of universal Love, at once kindle the fire of our soul and set aglow our normal consciousness, so that it may cut off its moorings and launch upon the Infinite.
In this essay we shall dwell upon some of the teachings of the Mother regarding the proper accomplishment of Yogic action, especially the avoidance of some of the snares of its path and the renunciation of the ideas, habits and tendencies to which our ignorant nature is all too prone.
"See, how small is the importance of external circumstances. Why strain and stiffen in the effort to realise thy conception of the Truth ? Be more supple, more confident. The only thing thou hast to do is not to let thyself be troubled by anything. To torment oneself about doing good brings about as bad results as bad will. It is in the calm of deep waters that lies the sole possibility of true Service.”¹
In this short paragraph, packed with suggestions, the Mother has embodied three invaluable instructions which every spiritual seeker would do well to lay to heart and practise. The first is that the external circumstances have not much intrinsic importance. Their value lies in the idea we form and the use we make of them. In spiritual life it is always the inner condition, the trend and drift of the psychological elements, the attitude and the spirit that count, and not so much the outer circumstances, whose favour and menace are equally utilised by the soul for its evolution. Sometimes congenial circumstances minister to our spiritual growth and sometimes they prove a positive
¹ Prayers and Meditations, of the Mother, August 2, 19I3. These words spoken by the Divine have a special significance and special bearing on the life and experiences of the Mother. Here we are concerned only with their general import and universal applicability.
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hindrance. Very often the buffet of adverse circumstances fires the being into a more intensive effort and induces an integration of its parts which would have otherwise remained either dully apathetic or feebly responsive to the call of the Spirit. The Yogin comes to discover, as he proceeds on his way, that the circumstances and conditions of his life are not chance happenings, but the impeccable dispensation of a Providence that is working out, in its inscrutable way, the liberation and perfection of his complex nature. He ceases to take the circumstances at their face value, for, in fact, they have none in spiritual life, but goes behind them to glimpse the hand of the Guide. Proceeding still farther, he learns to look upon all circumstances, good and bad, scowling and smiling, with the calm gaze of eternity—they shed all their secular values and distinctions and become but the steps of the self-fulfiling Will of the Divine in him.
The second counsel the Mother gives is that we should not "strain and stiffen” in our effort to realise our conception of the Truth. What we usually do is to form a mental idea of the Truth we want to attain. The idea, no doubt, has its utility; it becomes for the time being the focal point of the progressive energies of our nature. But as soon as our mind opens into a higher consciousness and new truths begin to dawn upon it, it must know how to give up its preconceived ideas, its rigid constructions, and hail the new truths. Without this readiness to renounce the old, limited conceptions and the suppleness to receive the new, expanding aspects of the Truth, we shall remain tethered to the ambitious ignorance of our mind and continue to hug our complacent consistency in a vain pride. What we should never lose sight of is the fact that Truth is one and infinite, though its formulation are many and mutable, and however brilliant a formulation may appear to our mental consciousness, however much it may claim our homage and fealty, to make it the only ideal to be realised is to elect to live in a half-way house and refuse to go forward. Surely, nothing can be more preposterous than to make the mind our guide in the boundless realms of the Spirit. All that it can possibly do
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is to lead us on to some comparatively serene uplands of our normal consciousness and make us believe that we have arrived at the summit of our soul's aspiration. This is nothing short of a camouflaged spiritual catastrophe.
There is another danger in depending entirely upon the guidance of the mind. It is a common experience of those who have studied their own nature that the ego thrives best on the strict principles and stringent rules it imposes upon itself, and feels not only secure but glorified if it can entrench itself in a lofty code of inflexible ethics. Cock-sure of the validity of its prepossessions, it presumes to dictate its spiritual course, and, in spite of the Guru's leading and the soul's experiences, it strives to force its consciousness and nature into a preconceived mould and pattern. This stress and domination of the mental ego spells an arrest of the spiritual evolution, though it may rig out an ethical Joseph and make him masquerade as a spiritual Paul.
What is most needed in spiritual life is an infinite plasticity and an ungrudging capacity for renouncing the lower for the sake of the higher, and ascending from the plains to the plateaus and from the plateaus to the radiant peaks. A springy tread, a supple grasp, and a soaring aspiration characterise a genuine seeker of the Truth. The last renunciation of the mind is the renunciation of its knowledge and its pretentious purity, which done, it can easily surmount itself and steadily progress towards the infinite Truth.
The third teaching of the Mother is : "The only thing thou hast to do is not to let thyself be troubled by anything.” Fret and worry are a great hindrance to Yogic action in as much as they ruffle the poise of the being and disturb the equality of consciousness which is the basis of all spiritual progress. To be troubled is to betray one's weakness and relapse into a mental confusion. Usually it is the vital-emotional being that, hurried by some desires and predilections, creates a ferment in the consciousness and a feverish impatience to realise the ideal; but the very ferment and fever cloud the ideal and deflect the will. "To torment oneself about doing good brings about as
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bad results as bad will.” We may be pursuing an altruistic object, but an agitated consciousness with an unsteady will often produces results contrary to our expectations, results which appear to have been brought about by a bad will. There are many instances, recorded in the lives of Yogins, of a disastrous fall from the path caused by a restless desire for "doing good." Under this desire, so innocent in our eyes and so laudable in those of others, we forget for a while the goal we have set out to attain and give rise to many complications in our own psychology. Not only do our preferences and attachments enter into our choice of the work, but the atmosphere and vibrations of those we want to help and serve introduce into the work elements which often militate against or throw out of gear the developing trends of our being. Our consciousness is obscured as a result of this unhappy decision and choice, and we have perforce to submit to the "determinism of the order of the realities in which we are conscious” at the moment; "whence all the consequences, often unforeseen and unfortunate, contradictory to the general orientation of life and forming obstacles, sometimes terrible, which have afterwards to be surmounted.”¹ Altruism, philanthropy, humanism are all good in their place and conducive to the growth of the moral being and the development of disinterestedness;—some subtle, self-regarding interest, however, remains even in this mental disinterestedness—but the Yogic life is a revolutionary departure from the common standards and traditional courses of human existence, and it is dangerous to be in two minds about its pursuit. If I seek the Divine and a dynamic union with Him in my entire being and at the same time open myself to the suggestions and solicitations of my ethical mind, which is even at its best a mind of twilit ignorance, I allow the brightest part of my consciousness to be eclipsed, my will deflected, and my nature yoked to a category of determinism which may seriously imperil my spiritual progress. It is only our ignorance of the diverse determinisms of the different planes of consciousness and different orders of realities that makes
¹ Prayers and Meditations of the Mother, January 31, 1914.
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us rush into any action that appeals to our surface being. An indiscriminate undertaking of the actions preferred by the mind usually leads to a confusion of values and a chaos of consequences. What than should a Yogin do when many ideals appeal to his mind and many actions demand his decision and choice ? What is the most important criterion of Yogic action ? The Mother's words depict two successive states of the Yogin: —first, that in which he is seeking union and identification with the Divine through Yogic action as well as through love and knowledge, and, second, that in which he acts in the Divine, by the direct dynamisation of the divine Will. The whole attitude of the Yogin in the first state is summed up in the the following words, "Grant that more and more I may be perfectly awakened to the awareness of Thy constant Presence. Let all my acts conform to Thy Law; let there be no difference between my will and Thine. Extricate me from the illusory consciousness of my mind, from its world of phantasies; let me identify my consciousness with the absolute Consciousness, for that art Thou.”¹ The attunement of the will of the Yogin to the will of the Divine through a progressive elimination of the desires and attachments of the old Adam is the first objective. Each action, before it is undertaken, has to be referred to the Guru, or in the absence of the Guru, to the indwelling Divine, for approval and sanction, so that none of the desires of the being, physical, vital or mental, may go to determine our decision and choice. Not what we think best and essential, ; but what the Divine, the Author and Master of our being, demands of us, should be undertaken and accomplished in the spirit of a joyous sacrifice. So long as we have not attained to some kind of union with the Divine, so long as we live in the ordinary consciousness, "nothing should...be treated lightly, with indifference; the smallest circumstances, the smallest acts have a great importance and should be seriously considered; for we should at every moment strive to do that which will facilitate the identification of our consciousness with the eternal Consciousness, and carefully avoid all that can be an obstacle to this identification.
¹ Prayers and Meditations of the Mother, February 15, 1914.
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It is then that the rules of conduct having at their base a perfect personal disinterestedness should assume all their value.”¹ In this state of aspiring but unsealed human consciousness, it would be not only fatuous but spiritually fatal to believe or claim that we are instruments of the divine Will and have no personal responsibility for the actions we do. Such a belief is always attended with the most ruinous consequences—an abnormal magnification of the ego, a precipitation of the crude vital forces, and a straying away from the right path. And yet the consciousness of being a divine instrument has to be attained, the sense of ourselves being the doers of our actions has to go. This paradox is resolved by the double movement of rejection and surrender,—rejection or repulsion of all egoistic desires and a progressive surrender and opening of the whole consciousness and nature to the developing action of the divine Force. Desirelessness, so much insisted upon in the Gita, is the best insurance against delusions and errors. A desireless heart is a pure heart and a fit temple for the installation of the divine Presence. It is only in a desireless consciousness that the divine Will can manifest itself.
We learn, then, from the above words of the Mother, that the touchstone of a true Yogic action, done from the ordinary consciousness, is that it should not be impelled by any self- regarding desire, however humane and noble it may be, but by an unflagging aspiration for union with the Divine through an increasing conformity to His self-manifesting Will. At each step of our journey, "the duality will present itself"—whether to do this or to do that—and at each step we have to make a choice, surrenderingly and irrevocably. It is only the sincerity —absolute and integral sincerity—of our aspiration and the answering action of the divine Grace that can take us through the tangled forest of Yogic action—gahana karmano gatiḥ.
But when we live in the Divine, identified with Him, our will attuned to His Will, our springs of action moved by Him alone, we perceive the relativity of all terrestrial circumstances and we say, "Doing this or that has after all no great importance,
¹Prayers and Meditations of the Mother, February 12, 1914.
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yet such and such a way of action will be the best utilisation of such and such a faculty or temperament. All actions, whatever they may be, even the most contradictory in appearance, can be the expression of Thy Law in the measure in which they are imbued with the consciousness of that Law, which is not a law of practical application capable of being translated into principles or rules in the ordinary human consciousness, but which is a law of attitude, of a constant and general consciousness, something which is not at all expressed by formulas, but which is lived.”¹
In that unbanked consciousness "all problems regarding we should or should not do or concerning all the resolutions to be taken, appear easy, a little childish.” For "the best use to be made of our physical organism. Thy mode of manifestation upon earth, it is enough, when Thou alone art conscious in us, to turn regard towards this body to know indisputably (for, there is room for any doubt there) what is the thing it can do b what is the activity which will employ most completely all energies.”² The right intuition springing out of that union, or to put it more graphically, the Will of the Divine, flashing i of the union, impels the action of the Yogi, his mind stilled into a receiving and transmitting channel, and his body, a plastic and thrilled dynamo of divine energies.
But whatever the nature and magnitude of the action, w ever the range and depth of its results, "without attaching any great importance to this activity, to this quite relative utilisation, we can take, without any difficulty, without any inner discussion, the decisions which, to the outer consciousness, appear most daring and hazardous.”³
For, after all, what is an action, even a most stupendous and far-reaching action, but a relative and transitory utilisation of human faculties, an ephemeral ripple of the universal Force, before the moveless infinity and eternity of the Absolute! To be attached to an action, however great it may be, is to forfeit one's union with the Absolute. A Yogi must "rise above
¹ prayers and Meditations of the Mother, February 12, 1914.
² ibid., February n, 1914.
³ ibid,, February n, 1914.
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the perception of contingencies” and see "things from the heights of Thy eternity.”
The Mother's words ring in our ears as we close this brief exposition :—"It is in the calm of deep waters that lies the sole possibility of true service.” No precipitancy, no inquietude, no tension, no anxiety or worry about doing this important duty or that, serving the society or helping humanity, but taking an inner plunge through love and knowledge and dedicated action, and, in the unassailable peace and serenity of the depths, discovering the Will of the Divine, surrendering our own to it and letting it fulfil itself in every movement of our life—this is true service. Whom else should man serve if not the eternal Maker and Master of his being ? And how else can he best serve Him except by the direct instrumentation of His Will and Force ?
IV
"Who is the real doer of a perfect Yogic action ? Is it the purified and surrendered ego of the individual under the direct influence of the soul ? Is it the soul itself ? Or, is it Divine ?” This is one of the most momentous questions in the philosophy of Yogic action, and we propose to consider it here in the light of the Mother's teachings.
It goes without saying that the ego cannot be the doer of a pure Yogic action. The ego acts from desire, however subtly disguised it may be, or refined and noble in its character; but the one indispensable pre-condition of a pure Yogic action is that it must be absolutely disinterested and desireless. If the ego is ruled out, is the soul then the doer ? Some schools of dynamic Yoga will reply in the affirmative. They will say that the liberated soul, detached from and superior to Nature, does the Yogic action. Others may go a step further and assert that the liberated individual, the Jivanmukta, living in the Divine, can be said to be the doer, in the sense that he is the channel of the divine Will, but, really speaking, it is the Divine Himself who is the sole and sovereign doer of all action. Both these
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views are true, because they are based on experiences which cannot be impugned; but what they skip over is the dynamic nucleus or the active centralising agency in the frontal part of the nature and its contribution or non-contribution to the Yogic action. In other words, does the ego completely fade out of the individual nature, or does it persist even when the soul is in command ? With the blunt, disarming candour, characteristic of him, Sri Ramakrishna says, "If the obstinate ego would not go, well, let it then remain as a servant of God." The implication is unmistakable that the ego does not altogether disappear out of the nature of the liberated individual, but persists, subdued and surrendered, it may be, enlightened and widened in consciousness, but essentially separative and self-assertive, This view lends colour to the wide-spread belief that so long as the body is there, some kind of "I" ness or the ego is bound to persist in the nature parts of even a liberated man. The physical knot of egoism, it is held, can be dissolved only when the body drops and the soul departs from the earthly life. The Vedantic ideal of the Jivanmukta (liberated in life) is not quite explicit; about the actual state of the active physical consciousness of the liberated man. That his soul remains detached, impersonal unaffected by the mutations of Nature, which it observes but with which it does not identify itself, admits of no possible doubt; but what about his outer personality, that part of his surface nature which is rivetted to the sense-bound separative "I" ? There is nothing definite and conclusive in the Upanishads to prove that Janaka's outer nature too was as much liberated as his soul, and that his physical consciousness was! much universalised and impersonalised as his spiritual., purified, quieted and controlled physical consciousness may reflect to a certain extent the light and bliss of the soul, but, as the experience of many of the greatest Yogis testifies, inherent egoism of the body-consciousness remains or recurs, and the subconscient welter is always there to surprise the a by its sporadic surges. In Sri Chaitanya's case we find a victorious humility beating the veils of the ego to a frazzle, but still the frazzle remained and betrayed itself in his occasional
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Over-eagerness to abase himself to the dust and his not infrequent spurts of ascetic severity towards himself and his disciples. Only in the state of the Mahabhava did his ego completely vanish, leaving the whole being in the possession of the Divine. Totapuri's sudden flare-up at a stranger's asking for a brand from his fire to light his tobacco was not so much an outburst of anger as of the subconscient ego, which had managed to survive his soul's liberation and which now revolted at the impudent audacity of the boorish stranger in asking for a brand from his—Totapuri's !—fire. In Vishwamitra's case, we have the classical example of the leech-like tenacity of the ego asserting itself in the wake of every spiritual achievement.
It is perhaps the Gita alone that holds out the great hope of a full and harmonious divine living, sarvathā yogī mayi vartate, wholly free from the taint of the ego, nirahankāra. It promises to its follower an abiding God-union in and through life's manifold activities. But how that is to be accomplished, by what supreme transmutation of the basic stuff of human nature, it does not explain. It confines itself to the synthetic teaching that by the elimination of all desires and an integral self-giving to the Divine alone through knowledge, works and love, one can come to do the works of the liberated, muktasya karma, or the divine action, divyam karma, unhindered and unharassed by the ego. Here we must pause to clarify two points : first, whether the ego which is rooted in the sub-soil of our being, can be grubbed out and cast away by the discipline of the Gita and, second, whether a desireless, impersonal action is all that a perfect Yogic action means.
The spiritual discipline of the Gita is, indeed, a very powerfully synthetic discipline for a divine life-effectuation and life- fulfilment, but the most radically effective steps of it, the steps of the crucial transition from the human to the Divine, have been left in obscurity, as a mystery to be resolved in personal experience. But the modern mind insists on elaboration and elucidation. It wants to know what this supreme path is, before it resolves to venture upon it. It wants to have a clear idea of what constitutes a Yogic action—who is the real doer of the
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divine works and what is the place and function of the individual soul and its nature in them. It has understood that the ego has to go, lock, stock and barrel; but, how, it asks, so long as the gross physical body is there and the ego's roots thrive in the fertile fields of the subconscient ? Has it ever been achieved except in trance or a deeply indrawn state of human consciousness? Is there any spiritual discipline by which not only the conscious parts of the nature, but also the subconscient and the inconscient can be thoroughly cleansed of even the last, lingering vestiges of the ego and transferred to the sole charge of the Divine ? Can the lower human nature of the three shackling qualitative modes, guṇas, be raised and converted into the divine Nature, parā prakṛti ? Can man become wholly divine, not only in his inner, but also in his outermost consciousness and being, even in his secular, active personality ?
The second point which has to be clarified before we proceed to a detailed consideration of all the above issues, is whether a desireless, impersonal action is all that a consummate Yogic action means. The end of Yogic action is the perfect fulfilment of the Will of the Divine, which is a will to self-manifestation. The attunement of the will of the individual to the Will of the Divine is, therefore, the indispensable condition of this fulfilment, and this attunement must be integral, that is to say, it must be an attunement of the will of each part of the individual to the Will of the Divine. Now, a desireless, impersonal, passive consciousness can let the divine Will work itself out, but this passivity, however luminous and blissful it may be, reduces the soul to a will-less channel and its instrumental nature to an automaton. There is no active participation or collaboration of the individual in the work of the Divine, no rapture of the dynamic union. That cannot surely be the intention of the Divine in the individual. In a pure and perfect Yogic action the individual soul with its integrated and transformed nature must be an active agent and participant in the divine action, each part of its being, in tune with the others and in tune with the Divine, developed to its utmost perfection and responding to every touch of the divine Force. In the midst of its passivity it
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must be a vibrating dynamo of divine activity; in the midst of its impersonality it must preserve a unified and powerful personality, and its desirelessness must be, not a blank of luminous repose, but a vast, thrilled channel of the supreme creative Will and its lightning energies.
In the Prayer of the 17th April, 1914, the Mother makes it abundantly clear that no part of the human nature has to be coerced or repressed or weakened, each has its distinct place and function proper to it and indispensable to the harmonious working of the organic whole. What is to be totally expunged is the ego, the separative ‛I-ness' and 'my-ness' which insulates the individual from the universal and condemns him to ignorance and incapacity.
"O Lord, O almighty Master, sole Reality, grant that no error, no obscurity, no fatal ignorance may creep into my heart and my thought.
"In action, the personality is the inevitable and indispensable intermediary of Thy will and Thy force.
"The stronger, the more complex, powerful, individualised and conscious is the personality, the more powerfully and usefully can the instrument serve. But, by reason of the very character of personality, it easily tends to be drawn into the fatal illusion of its separate existence and become little by little a screen between Thee and that on which Thou wiliest to act. Not at the beginning, in the manifestation, but in the transmission of the return; that is to say, instead of being, as a faithful servant, an intermediary who brings back to Thee exactly what is Thy due—the forces sent forth in reply to Thy action—there is a tendency in the personality to want to keep for itself a part of the forces, with this idea : 'It is I who have done this or that, I who am thanked.’ Pernicious illusion, obscure falsehood, now are you discovered and unmasked. This is the maleficent canker corroding the fruit of the action, falsifying all its results.
"O Lord, O my sweet Master, sole Reality, dispel this feeling of the 'I’. I have now understood that so long as there will be a manifested universe, the 'I’ will remain necessary for Thy manifestation;
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to dissolve, or even to diminish or weaken the T, is to deprive Thee of the means of manifestation, in whole or part. But what must be radically and definitively suppressed, is the illusory thought, the illusory feeling, the illusory sensation of the separate 'I’. At no moment, in no circumstances must we forget that our 'I’ has no reality outside Thee.
"O my sweet Master, my divine Lord, tear out from my heart this illusion that Thy servant may become pure and faithful, and faithfully and integrally bring back to Thee all That is Thy due, In silence let me contemplate and understand this supreme ignorance and dispel it for ever. Chase the shadow from my heart and let Thy light reign in it, its uncontested sovereign”
This Prayer focuses our attention on five cardinal principles of Yogic action :—
1) "In action the personality is the inevitable and indispensable intermediary of Thy Will and Thy forces.”
2) "The stronger, the more complex, powerful, individualised and conscious is the personality, the more powerfully and usefully can the instrument serve.”
3) "So long as there will be a manifested universe, the T will remain necessary for Thy manifestation...”
4) "To dissolve or even to diminish or weaken the T is to deprive Thee of the means of manifestation, in whole or part.”
5) "What must be radically and definitively suppressed, is the illusory thought, the illusory feeling, the illusory sensation of the separate 'I’. At no moment, in no circumstances must we forget that our 'I’ has no reality outside Thee”
These revolutionary ideas give a remarkable definiteness and precision to the ideal of the Yogic action as set forth by the Mother. The human personality has not to be abolished in the Impersonal, but carefully preserved, organised, reinforced and harmoniously developed; only it has to be purified of all taint and perversion of the ego. A supremely conscious, complex and firmly individualised personality is the best "intermediary of the divine Will”, if the "I” in it is not the little, limited, separative "I", but the transcendent and universal
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"I" who is without a second. Through such impersonal personalities alone can the Divine affirm His inalienable unity in diversity and yet make each diversity, each finite form a facet and an aspect, a manifesting mould and a mirror of His formless Infinity. To weaken the "I" is to deprive the Divine of the means of His manifestation, for, how, then, will the Divine declare Himself and reveal His glory in myriad forms, saying in each of them, "Here am I, my initial intention of becoming many and yet remaining the indivisible One has been fulfilled" ?
The "I" will then remain,—without it there can be no reception and transmission of the divine Will and the divine forces—but it will become the transcendent and universal "I", the one "I" conscious of itself in all forms and powerful to achieve everything. The blind, sense-embedded, separate "I" will disappear for ever, even from the physical consciousness, even from the subconscient. This supreme consummation, unrealised by man up to the present day, but inevitable as the crown of his evolutionary endeavour, will be possible by a descent of the transforming Light of the Divine into the very cells of the body, even into the submerged parts of the being, as some of the Mother's experiences in the "Prayers and Meditations" illustrate. We do not propose to deal with the long and steep work of transformation here;¹ for our present purpose it is enough to maintain that the ego can be completely excised from the entire being and consciousness of man and the Divine installed there as the unveiled doer of all Yogic action. What was left cryptic in the Gita's conception of the Yogic action and missed by some dynamic Yogas that miscarried, has been clearly expounded by the Mother and Sri Aurobindo and reduced to a comprehensive, synthetic and flexible system—the steps of the Spirit override all rigour and routine—which, whoever feels called, can follow to its glorious end.
Describing the state of the liberated individual being, living in the Divine and exclusively devoted to His work, the Mother
¹ It has been dealt with in our article "THE MOTHER ON TRANSFORMATION” in the Mother India of August 19, 1950,
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says, "To be immersed at once in Thee and in Thy work....To be no longer a limited individual...to become the infinitude of Thy forces manifesting through a point...to be delivered from all trammels and limitations... to rise above all restricting though ...to act and be beyond the act...to act through and for individuals but see only the oneness, the oneness of Thy Love, Thy Knowledge and Thy Being...”¹ An egoless, impersonal, individual consciousness, basing and supporting God-impelled action through the transfigured natural personality and its sublimated faculties, each in its place and at its proper task, none depressed or repressed or neglected, but all harmoniously organised and divinely used—this is the perfection of Yogic action as experienced by the Mother and held up before man as the highest spiritual ideal to be realised in life. This dynamic divine union is not only a "simple and perceived contact of the substance of the soul with that of the Divine", as Coventry Patmore describes "the most perfect form of contemplation", but it is also a constant union and communion between the transmuted substance of the individual body with the infinite luminous substance of the divine Existence. It was perhaps some such integral dynamic ideal that was in the background of the Upanishadic verses :—
"Know the body for a chariot and the soul for the master of the driving, the lower mind for the reins and the higher mind for the charioteer who driveth.
"The senses are the steeds of the soul and the objects of their action are the paths in which they gallop; for there is one who is yoked with soul and mind and senses, and he is that which enjoyeth, say the thinkers.”²
"There is one who is yoked with soul and mind and senses" evidently refers to the One without a second, the only Existent, the sole Reality, the Divine, who becomes on earth the overt doer of all Yogic action, and this interpretation is confirmed
¹Prayers and Meditations of the Mother, May 4, 1914.
² Kathopanishad, Part I, Chap. 3.
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by the first verse of the same part of the Upanishad :—
"There are two that drink deep of the truth of works well done- in the world: they are lodged in the heart of the creatures and in the highest half of the most high is their dwelling.” "As of light and shade God-knowers speak of them...”
An ascent of the integrated consciousness of the individual to the supreme Truth-Consciousness, ṛta-cit, of the Divine by an absolute and integral aspiration and self-surrender induces a delivering and transforming descent of the ṛta-cit into the whole being of man, and it is this ṛta-cit that becomes the doer of all actions, kṛtsna karmakṛt, in the liberated individual who enjoys immortality "by birth" and works in this terrestrial existence. The end of human life is not flight or extinction, but immortality in creative delight.
V
Immensely more than the ordinary worldly life, the spiritual life is a battlefield, where each inch of ground has to be won by hard fight, and it is always—except at a very advanced stage—a fight against tremendously heavy odds. Besides, what immeasurably increases the difficulty of the struggle, is that the forces we fight are not outside, but within us, within our psychological constitution, though foreign to our true self. It is a fight in oneself, a remorseless, tireless fight for the excision of the exotic and the excrescent and the expulsion of the malignant intruders and the purveyors of poison and pestilence. There is no force outside that can really harm us, so long as there is none within us to respond to it.
But, it may be asked, are there not forces hostile to us and to our spiritual progress, which attack us from outside? It must be admitted at once that there are, no doubt, many such forces in the world, and that they do strive to delude or thwart us; but if we oppose them with a calm and resolute rejection, fortified by divine protection which a sincere call can never
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fail to secure, and if nothing in us responds or gives the slightest opening to them, they may invade, but can never injure us. But are there not forces and elements in the world, it may be asked again, which are vowed to prevent a collective advance of man towards the Divine and His descent and emergence for self-manifestation in human life ? Will an exclusively subjective self-discipline be effective enough against them ? And granting that it is effective, will it be effective to the extent of conquering and converting them altogether ?
The last question raises an important issue. Spiritual victory has two aspects, the inner and the outer; and a complete victory must comprise both. Self-mastery and world-mastery, swarājya-siddhi and sāmrājya-siddhi have been the highest ideal of the most dynamic spiritual cultures of the remote past. But self-mastery or swarājya-siddhi is the first indispensable achievement, and without it the second is impossible. It is only when one is master of oneself that one can hope and endeavour to be master of the world. It is a wrong strategy to launch upon aggression before consolidating the defence. But when one realises one's true self, one finds it widening into infinity. It is realised not only as an individual entity, but also as universal and transcendent; and then nothing remains outside-all is seen and felt and tackled in oneself. It is only when we have this comprehensive realisation of ourself containing the whole universe, that we understand that there is no outside and inside; and not before that. It is only then that we appreciate the truth of what the Mother means when she says:—
"It is in oneself that there are all the obstacles, it is in a that there are all the difficulties, it is in oneself that there is all the darkness and ignorance. Even if we were to travel across the whole earth, bury ourselves in some solitary place, break with all our habits, lead the most ascetic life, still if some bond of illusion held back the consciousness far from Thy absolute Consciousness, if some egoistic attachment deprived us of the integral communion with Thy divine Love, we should be no nearer to Thee, whatever might be the outer circumstances. Are there even
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circumstances more or less favourable ? I doubt it; it is the idea we form of them which enables us to profit better or worse by the lessons they give us.”¹
First, then, a thorough cleansing of our inner being, an uncompromising elimination of all that stands in the way of our total self-consecration to the Divine. At this stage of the Yoga, it will be more and more evident that the real causes of our difficulties lie within us and that the outer resistance is only a provoking action and a reminder of them. It would be futile to struggle with the outer circumstances without conquering the inner impurities and weaknesses which render our being vulnerable to their attacks. All the obstacles we meet with, all the difficulties we knock against, all the darkness and ignorance which cause stumbles and suffering are, as the Mother says, within us; and it is the most primary and principal part of Yogic discipline to look within with an honest, dispassionate and searching eye, and spot even each little offender that hides in darkness. A considerable amount of time and labour which we expend on the outer factors in the mistaken belief that it is they that are responsible for our falls and failures, can thus be saved, and many an unpleasant consequence avoided or obviated.
When we look at the difficulties of life from this standpoint, we realise the extreme importance and utility of action in spiritual life. Action rouses all the elements and energies of our nature and confronts them with those of others. In this interlocking of diverse forces, colliding and coalescing with each other, we get an opportunity, otherwise unavailable, of studying not only the main trends and tendencies of our own nature, its major movements and vibrations, its dominant desires and attachments and preferences, but even the little turns and twists, the hidden sores or passing quivers which, though they elude a superficial observation, are yet prolific sources of disharmony and disruption. It is thanks to Yogic action that all these forces and elements of our nature are
¹ Prayers and Meditations of the Mother.
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exposed to our view and made amenable to change and correction.
But usually we twist away from the truth and blame others or our circumstances and surroundings for the defeats and chagrins we experience in life. We do not have the courage to trace their sources in us, to realise that they are pointers to some defects and drawbacks lurking or latent in our being, which have to be discovered and removed, in order that we may advance towards our goal of an integral union and communion with the Divine. It is spiritually harmful to quarrel with persons or worry over circumstances. On the contrary, it is not unoften the unfavourable circumstances that stimulate the divine qualities in us and promote our spiritual progress; and we can also say that what we know as favourable or congenial circumstances prove often positively detrimental by their anaesthetic effect upon our creative energies and evolving faculties.
The truth of the matter is that the outer conditions and circumstances play a very insignificant, almost a negligible role in the spiritual advancement of our being. What is important is the inner purification—the freedom from desire and attachment, from cares and unrest and falsehood and egoism. And what is still more important than this, is the single-minded aspiration for the Divine and a perfect self-dedication to His Will. This is the positive aspect of Yoga which has always to be stressed and not lost sight of in the rush and tumult of the lower forces. A sincere aspiration and surrender usually bring in their wake a light which is not of the mind, and a subtle guidance which is not of our moral conscience; and then it becomes much easier to detect in us the difficulties and obstacles which hamper and hinder our progress. And once we detect and reject them, we find that the subjective self-discipline amply justifies itself by a definite change in the objective self-expression of our nature. The difficulties and obstacles which had cast a menacing gloom over our life disappear, as if by a miracle, confirming our trust in the Mother's words, "If you keep your faith unshaken and your heart always open
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to me, then all difficulties, however great, will contribute to the greater perfection of the being.”¹ In regard to the difficulties we encounter in work, the Mother says, "The difficulties in work come not from circumstances or outer petty occurrences, they come from something in the inner attitude (especially in the vital attitude) which is wrong,—egoism, ambition, fixity of the mental conceptions regarding work, etc., etc. And it is always better to look for the cause of the disharmony, in order to correct it, in oneself rather than in the other or others.”² If we learn to step back and look within, instead of fretting and worrying, each time there is an opposition or confusion in the outer circumstances of our life, we gain not only in endurance and equality, which are the very basis and condition of self-mastery, but in the inner power to straighten and solve the outer problems; and the greatest gain is first the awareness and then the elimination of whatever in us has occasioned or reacted to the circumstances. "Always circumstances come to reveal the hidden weaknesses that have to be overcome.”³
But when we identify ourselves with the universal and the transcendent Spirit, nothing is perceived as outside of us; the forces of light and the forces of darkness, the factors that help and the factors that hinder, the goodwill and sympathy of friends and the rancour and resistance of enemies, our own blemishes and the blemishes of others—all are seen within us, and not without; all have to be dealt with, in the way the inner light indicates, within us, and not without. It is this that the Mother means when she says to the Divine, "(1) await from Thee the inspiration and strength needed to set right the error in me and around me,—two things that are one, for I have now a constant and precise perception of the universal unity determining an absolute interdependence of all action.”4 A comprehensive consciousness embraces all, feels itself in all, grapples with the forces and problems of life, individual and collective,
¹ Words of the Mother.
² Words of the Mother, Second Series.
³ Words of the Mother. . .
4 Prayers and Meditations of the Mother, November 2, 1913.
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with the clairvoyant intimacy of identity. This is the typical spiritual seeing of which the Upanishads speak—the seeing from the inside out, from the core to the crust, from reality to phenomena, from the absolute to the relative, from Truth to its manifold, evolving self-expression. In this seeing in dynamic identity inheres the power of not only purifying, but trans- figuring life and achieving divine mastery.
But whatever the nature of the mastery we aim at, self- mastery or world-mastery, the problem of the spiritual life is the problem of inner exploration and inner conquest. The truth of things floats not on the surface, but rays out from the depths, and a complete union and communion with the Divine can only be the result of a perfect perfection in self-mastery achieved by a scrupulous self-analysis and a relentless elimination of the difficulties and obstacles that our ignorant desires and attachments invite and harbour in us. And for this victorious self-mastery or all-mastery, Yogic action is the indispensable means. A passive, ascetic spirituality leaves the world and life much as they have always been—it seeks its crown elsewhere than on earth.
VI
Our survey of the Mother's teaching on Yogic action draws to a close. We have seen that the primary and principal aim of Yogic action is union with the Divine. A disinterested doing of all action as an offering to the Divine, without allowing any desire or preference to enter into it, is the first step. In proportion as desirelessness, and self-offering progress, one advances in an increasing purity and freedom, towards union and communion with the Divine. It is at this stage, when a certain amount of silence has been established in the mind and the central consciousness has become transparent and limpid, that the Divine Will manifests itself, intermittently, as if in a sudden flash, in the beginning, and afterwards more clearly, definitely and constantly, and the will of the divine worker unites with it in a rapture of ardent self-giving. If the primary and principal
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object of Yogic action is union, the ultimate object is the flawless expression of the divine Will in the liberated and transformed individual. The fullness of the self-giving is the most important condition of this double fulfilment—divine union and divine self-expression.
But what usually happens in many spiritual seekers is that the most developed and enlightened part of their being surrenders itself to the Divine, but the other parts comprising even those of which they are not themselves quite aware, remain entrenched in customary habits and let themselves be moved by the forces of Ignorance; and it is often these unsurrendered and unregenerate parts that cash in upon the progress of the enlightened part and feel a glow of vicarious self-exaltation. This state can continue long; for, the sense of surrender gives a sort of justification to all one's actions and general ways of life, and one hardly feels any imperative call for the change of the whole being. If the enlightened part is under the direct influence of the psychic or the soul, there is the possibility of a total change. The cosy sense of self-exaltation fades away sooner or later, giving place to a haunting sense or want, some- times a positive, poignant feeling of inner destitution and forlornness. This augurs well, for it shows that the psychic influence is spreading to all the parts of the being, preluding and compelling an earnest seeking and effort. The discontent may be vague in the beginning, and one may not even know what it is for; but it grows, becomes more and more insistent and articulate and definite till the dominant will gathers up all the threads of the consciousness and constrains the unaspiring, apathetic and recalcitrant parts of the being to pay homage to the central ideal of life. But if the mind has taken the lead in the sadhana and the psychic influence is but faintly felt in moments of idealistic exaltation or emotional ardours, the total change may be long in coming, or may not come at all in the present life. And this is a common enough eventuality, which illustrates the biblical dictum that many are called, but only a few are chosen; for it is only those who have given all of themselves that are chosen.
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This completeness of the turning is the most decisive and determining factor in spiritual life. Especially, in the integral Yoga of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, nothing abiding can be achieved without an integral surrender. Experiences in the mind and the heart, or even in the higher and deeper reaches of consciousness are, in themselves, ineffectual to change the whole man,—his outer dynamic parts, which are slaves of mechanical habits and susceptible to the suggestions and impressions of the subconscient or the streaming influences of the surroundings, refuse to submit to any new orientation and discipline. The utility or rather the indispensability of Yogic action comes in just here, for, it is impossible to change the outer active nature without imposing upon it the attitude of self-offering in detail. An active, detailed self-offering, an offering of all one's external movements and of the will itself to the Divine, is the most effective way of purifying and transforming the whole nature.
But here too there is a difficulty. The hold of the ego is nowhere so fixed, so inertly, rigidly automatic as in our physical personality. Though it is stronger and more dominant and perverse in the vital, more subtly pervasive and masterful in the mind, the ego has an uncanny density in the physical being, which is almost impervious to the influence of any higher light, short of the highest, the Supramental. In a global Overmental experience, there does take place a complete universalisation of consciousness, but in normal moments of active physical consciousness, the ego in the body is found to persist as an unrelenting menace and veto against the universalisation achieved. That is why the seekers of the Spirit have always cherished an undisguised contempt for the body and its consciousness and tried to live as far as possible in the depths of their being or on its heights. This inert, mechanical persistence of the ego in the physical consciousness is considerably due to its roots being in the obscure regions of the subconscient, where the light of the higher consciousness does not reach and act. The way to eliminate this ego is not, therefore, an aversion to action and a retreat into the depths, but a constant and conscious
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offering of all action to the Divine with a persistence as dogged, as uncompromising and as relentless as that of the physical ego itself. The attitude of surrender and offering has to be rubbed into the physical being till it oozes down into the subconscient and becomes permanently fixed there. In the inertia of Matter lies the hidden power of tenacious retention; and if the attitude of offering is once stamped upon it, it will hold on to it, as it holds on to the ego today, Yogic action, therefore, is indispensable if the ego is to be wiped out of the physical consciousness and the Divine made the sole master of it. But the final victory and the absolute divine possession of the whole physical being will come, as we have already indicated, by the descent of the supramental Force which will unloose all the knots of the ego and steep the whole being in a living sense of the Infinite. In the luminous amplitude of the supramental consciousness, the ego, including the physical ego, will attain a painless Nirvana.
Let us illustrate what the Mother means by the offering of all actions.
She says, "Live constantly in the presence of the Divine; live in the feeling that it is this presence which moves you and is doing everything you do. Offer all your movements to it; not only every mental action, every thought and feeling, but even the most ordinary and external actions, such as eating; when you eat you must feel that it is the Divine who is eating through you. When you can thus gather all your movements into the One Life, then you have in you unity instead of division. No longer is one part of your nature given to the Divine, while the rest remains in its ordinary ways, engrossed in ordinary things; your entire life is taken up, an integral transformation is gradually realised in you.”¹ Sri Krishna's injunction to Arjuna in the Gita to offer all that he does, eats, renounces, gives and strives for in the way of askesis, is in line with this teaching of the Mother. But this detailed surrender is very difficult to achieve. An unflagging will and a sleepless vigilance, harnessed to a constant and comprehensive aspiration, can alone discipline and integrate all parts of the being and offer
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all their movements from moment to moment to the Divine. And Yogic action is the only means by which this detailed self- offering can be effected.
In the Prayer of November 28, 1912, which we have studied in the first essay of this series, the Mother speaks of the daily activity being the "anvil on which all the elements of our being must pass and repass in order to be purified, refined, made supple and ripe for the illumination which contemplation gives to them.” The Prayer, as we have seen in that essay, is remarkable as an outline of the Yogic action and demonstrates its indispensability for the integral realisation of the Divine. The Prayer we quote below—it is the last Prayer in the Mother's Prayers and Meditations—sums up the fundamental qualities necessary for Yogic action; it covers the whole field of life, its pith and pulse and purpose, and brings out in bold relief the ideal attitude of a servant of God :—
(A Prayer for those who wish to serve the Divine)
October 23, 1937.
"Glory to Thee, O Lord, who triumphest over every obstacle.
Grant that nothing in us shall be an obstacle in Thy work.
Grant that nothing may retard Thy manifestation.
Grant that Thy Will may be done in all things and at every moment.
We stand here before Thee that Thy Will may be fulfilled in us, in every element, in every activity of our being, from our supreme heights to the smallest cells of the body.
Grant that we may be faithful to Thee utterly and for ever.
We would be completely under Thy influence to the exclusion of every other.
Grant that we may never forget to own towards Thee a deep, an intense gratitude.
Grant that we may never squander any of the marvellous things that are Thy gifts to us at every instant.
Grant that everything in us may collaborate in Thy work and all be ready for Thy realisation.
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Glory to Thee, O Lord, Supreme Master of all realisation.
Give us a faith active and ardent, absolute and unshakable, in Thy Victory”
In the integral Yoga self-surrender can be said to be the very first step, which means that for the overcoming of difficulties as well as for the purification of our nature, we depend not upon our e own strength and power, but upon the Grace and Force of the Divine. That is why in the first line of the Prayer quoted above, the Mother addresses the Divine as the Lord "who triumphest, over every obstacle.” In fact and in actual experience, it is the Divine who does the sadhana (Yoga) in him who has surrendered to Him in all sincerity; and it is He who removes all obstacles, lurking within us or assailing us from without. In the a second line, therefore, the Divine is prayed for "that nothing in us shall be an obstacle in Thy work.” But what is that work ? Manifestation—manifestation of the Divine in Matter. And what is the best means of bringing about the fullness of this manifestation ? It is the fulfilment of the Divine Will "in all things and at every moment.” When our will, purified of all desire and egoism, unites and co-operates with the divine Will, then the latter can fulfil itself freely in our life and nature, "in every activity of our being, from our supreme heights to the smallest cells of the body.” This is a state of surpassing joy and freedom, a joy and freedom which no desire-ridden human being can ever us, know. But in order to attain this state and maintain it, we have to develop, along with surrender, faithfulness and gratitude, the capacity for cherishing, conserving and making the right use of the "marvellous things that are Thy (God's) gifts to us at every instant,” an integral and dynamic aspiration for collaborating in the divine work, and most important of all, faith, a faith "active and ardent, absolute and unshakable”, not only in the Divine, but in His Victory. Faithfulness means to be completely under the influence of the Divine, to the exclusion of every other influence. Gratitude, the rarest of virtues, has to be deep and and intense and constant for the marvellous things,—the inspiring flashes of light, the spurts of force and the thrills of delight
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among other things,—that are God's "gifts to us at every instant.” It would be suicidal for a seeker of the integral union and perfection to squander or to be negligent or indifferent to the gifts of the Divine, whether they are material or spiritual, Even the material things that come to him for his use are not only from the Divine, but afire with the Divine, and have, there- fore, to be handled in the right spirit and with a loving and scrupulous care. His life is a sacrament and his possessions are a trust from the Divine, and his progress and perfection depend upon the spirit in which he makes use of them. Lastly, what is most fruitful in the self-surrendering attitude of the servant of the Divine, is a resolute will to collaborate in the divine work with an absolute, unshakable faith in the ultimate Victory. This collaboration implies an active, and not a passive, surrender; the perception of the divine Will and the nature and purpose of its work, and a conscious and constant cooperation in that work with an unwavering faith in its final accomplishment—the full and perfect manifestation of God in the material world.
The only objective we have to set before ourselves, in this age at least, is the Victory of the Divine over the forces of darkness —over Ignorance, Falsehood and Death. This is the great work we are called upon to undertake and achieve. What is the means, the sovereign means by which this Victory will be won ? It is Love, the highest and mightiest Force of the Supreme. In her Prayer of the 23rd July, 1914, the Mother invokes the Divine to achieve this Victory :—
"O Lord, Thou art all-powerful; become the fighter and aim the victory. May Thy Love dwell as the sovereign Master of our hearts and Thy knowledge never leave our thoughts.....Do not abandon us in impotence and darkness; shatter all limits, break all chains, dispel all illusions...”
And in the Prayer of the 17th October, 1914, she communicates to us the promise of the Divine Mother with whom she is identified :—
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"O Divine Mother, the obstacles will he surmounted and the enemy appeased. Thou wilt reign over all the earth with Thy sovereign love, and the consciousness of men will be full of the light of Thy serenity. This is the promise.”
To conclude. The Mother teaches a dynamic and integral surrender to the Divine through Yogic action, which is the most effective means of purifying and transforming the active surface nature of man, especially the vital-physical. Since the aim of her Yoga is no mere purification but a radical transfiguration of the integral being of man, she insists on detailed surrender, surrender of each thought and feeling and action, to the Divine. Transformation of the whole being will naturally culminate in a constant and complete union with the Divine and an unimpeded expression of His Will in the life of the human instrument. This Will is, for the present period of human evolution at least, as we learn from the Mother and Sri Aurobindo a Will to Victory over the forces of darkness and death, and a manifestation of God's supramental sovereignty and splendour in the material world.
Those who have felt or perceived the transcendental great- ness of this work of the establishment of the supramental life or the Life Divine upon earth, and dedicated themselves to it, can have no hankering for personal salvation, though liberation from ignorance and egoism is a pre-condition of the perfection of this work, nor can they cherish an exclusive desire for peace or power. For them "There is a Power which no government can command, a Happiness which no earthly success can give, a Light which no wisdom can possess, a Knowledge which no philosophy, no science can acquire, a Beatitude of which no satisfaction of desire can give the enjoyment, a thirst for Love which no human relation can quench, a Peace which can be found nowhere, not even in death.
"It is the Power, the Happiness, the Light, the Knowledge, the Beatitude, the Love and the Peace which come...from the Divine Grace.”¹
¹ Prayers and Meditations of the Mother, October 28, 1928.
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