Integral Mental Education

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References:

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1: “The past is our foundation, the present our material, the future our aim and summit. Each must have its due and natural place in a national system of education.” Sri Aurobindo/ SABCL-17/p-205)

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2: TMCW-12/On Education/p-179,

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3: “Everyone is born with ... (what can I call it?) some special twist (laughing) – I know my own twist, I know it quite well! (I don't talk about it because it isn't enjoyable.) But that's what remains last of all. With our idiotic human logic, we think, "That's what should go first," but it's not true: it's what goes last! Even when it all becomes clear, clear (gesture above), even when you have all the experiences, the habit stays on and it keeps coming back. So you push it back: it rises again from the subconscient; you chase it away: it comes back from outside. So if for one minute you aren't on your guard, it shows up again – oh, what a nuisance! But Sri Aurobindo wrote about this somewhere, I don't remember the words; I read it very recently, and when I read it, I thought, "Ah, there it is! He knew it was that way." So it comforted me, and I thought, "All right, then." He said that he who has purified his mind and so on and so forth, who is ready to work towards Perfection (it's in the Synthesis, "The Yoga of Self-Perfection"), "He is ready and patient for lapses and the recurrence of old errors, and he works quietly, waiting patiently till the time comes for them to leave." I thought, "Very well, that's how it is now." I am patiently waiting for the time when ... (though I don't miss any opportunity to catch them by the tip of their nose, or the tip of their ear, and to say, "Ha, you're still here! ...").

The first thing is to detach your consciousness, that's most important. And to say: I-AM-NOT-THIS, it's something that has been ADDED, placed to enable me to touch Matter – but it isn't me. And then if you say, "That is me" (gesture upward), you'll see that you will be happy, because it is lovely – lovely, luminous, sparkling. It's really fine, it has an exceptional quality. And that's you. But you have to say, "That is me," and be convinced that it's you. Naturally, the old habits come to deny it, but you must know that they're old habits, nothing else, they don't matter – that is you.

This movement is indispensable. A moment comes when one must absolutely separate oneself from all this, because only when one has separated oneself and become quite conscious that one is there (gesture above the head), that one is THAT, only then can one come down again to change it all. Not to forsake it, but to be its master.

I've spent nights in sewers, cleaning out sewers.

Ah, that's good! (Mother laughs) Oh, but that's very funny because I've done identical things. Listen! ... Oh, well, it's very funny.

It's all right, it's all right.

We must endure. The victory belongs to the most enduring.

There are times when one is disgusted, and that's just when one should remember this. Now, your disgust may have reasons of its own (!) But you have only to endure. You know, there is one thing, I don't know if you have savored it yet: as soon as you have a difficulty, dissatisfaction, revolt, disgust – anything – fatigue, tension, discomfort, all, all that negative side (there are lots and lots and lots of such things, they take on all kinds of different colors), the immediate movement – immediate – of calling the Lord and saying, "It's up to You." As long as you try (instinctively you try to arrange things with your best light, your best consciousness, your best knowledge ...), it's stupid, because that prolongs the struggle, and ultimately it's not very effective. There is only one effective thing, that's to step back from what's still called "me" and ... with or without words, it doesn't matter, but above all with the flame of aspiration, this (gesture to the heart), and something perfectly, perfectly sincere: "Lord, it's You; and only You can do it, You alone can do it, I can't...." It's excellent, you can't imagine how excellent! For instance, someone comes and deluges you with impossible problems, wants you to make instant decisions; you have to write, you have to answer, you have to say – all of it – and it's like truckloads of darkness and stupidity and wrong movements and all that being dumped on you; and it's dumped and dumped and dumped – you are almost stoned to death with all that. You begin to stiffen, you get tense; then, immediately (gesture of stepping back): "O Lord. " You stay quiet, take a little step back (gesture of offering): "It's up to

you."…But you can't imagine, it's wonderful! Immediately there comes – clear, simple, effortlessly, without seeking for it – exactly what has to be done or said or written: the whole tension stops, it's over. And then, if you need paper, the paper is there; if you need a fountain pen, you find just the one you need; if you need ...(there's no seeking: above all don't seek, don't try to seek, you'll just make another mess) – it's there. And that's a fact of EVERY MINUTE. You have the field of experience every second. For instance, you're dealing with a servant who doesn't do things properly or as you think they should be done, or you're dealing with a stomach that doesn't work the way you'd like it to and it hurts: it's the same method, there is no other. You know, at times ... situations get so tense that you feel as if you're about to faint, the body can't stand it any more, it's so tense; or else there's a pain, something wrong, things aren't sorting themselves out, and there's a tension; so immediately you stop everything: "Lord, You, it's up to You...." At first there comes a peace, as if you were entirely outside existence, and then it's gone – the pain goes, the dizziness disappears. And what is to happen happens automatically. And, you see, it's not in meditation, not in actions of terrestrial importance: it's the field of experience you have ALL the time, without interruption – when you know how to put it to use. And for everything: when something hurts, for instance, when things resist or grate or howl inside there, instead of your saying, "Oh, how it hurts!    " you call the Lord in there: "Come in here," and then you stay calm, not thinking of anything – you simply stay still in your sensation. And more than a thousand times, you know, I was almost bewildered: "Look! The pain is gone!" You didn't even notice how it went. So people who want to lead a special life or have a special organization to have experiences, that's quite silly – the greatest possible diversity of experiences is at your disposal every minute, every minute. Only you must learn not to have a mental ambition for "great" things. Just the other day, I was shown in such a clear way a very small thing I had done ("I," it's the body speaking), a very small things that had been done by the Lord in this body (that's a long sentence!), and I was shown the terrestrial consequence of that very small thing – it was visible, I mean, as my hand is visible to my eyes – and the terrestrial correspondence. Then I understood.

We are given everything – EVERYTHING. All the difficulties that have to be overcome, all of them (and the more capable we are, that is, the more complex the instrument is, the more numerous the difficulties are), all the difficulties, all the opportunities to overcome them, all the possible experiences, and limited in time and space so they can be innumerable. And it has repercussions and consequences all over the earth (I am not concerned with what goes on in the universe because, for the time being, that isn't my work). But it is certain (because it has been said so and I know it) that what goes on on the earth has repercussions throughout the universe. Sitting there, you live the everyday life with its usual insignificance, its unimportance, its lack of interest ... and it's a WONDERFUL field of experiences, of innumerable experiences, not only innumerable but as varied as can be, from the most subtle to the most material, without leaving your body. Only, you should have RETURNED to it. You cannot have authority over your body without having left it.

Once the body is no longer you at all, once it is something that has been added and TACKED onto you, once it is that way and you look at it from above (a psychological "above"), then you can come down into it again as its all-powerful master.

You must come out of it first, then come down again. There you are.

And one should also look at all those difficulties, all those bad habits (like, for you, that habit of revolt: it's something that seems to have been kneaded into the cells of your body), one should look at all that with the smile of someone who says, "I am not that. Oh, this was put on me! ... Oh, that was added...." And you know, it was added ... because it's one of the victories you must win.

I've witnessed the most complete panorama of all the idiotic things in this life, they were shown to me as in a complete panorama: passing from one to another, seeing each of them separately and how they combined with each other. And then: Why? Why should one choose this? (A child's question, which one asks immediately.) And immediately, the answer: "But the more" (let's say "central" to be clearer) "the more central the origin and the more pure in its essence, the greater the 'ignoble complexity below,' as we could call it. Because the lower down you go, the more it takes an essential light to change things."

Once you've been told this very nicely, you're satisfied, you stop worrying – it's all right, you take things as they are: "That's how things are, it's my work and I do it; I ask only one thing, it is to do my work, all the rest doesn't matter."” The Mother’s Agenda-20.11.1963

4: “Something seems to be constantly telling people, "But don't take things seriously! ... Don't take things seriously, that's what makes you unhappy! That's what makes you unhappy, you must learn to smile," and so on. And above all, to make fun of ourselves, that's the most important thing: to see how ridiculous we are – the slightest pain and we are full of self-pity, oh! ...

At times one protests....

It's a very odd atmosphere, and amusing. But it's a very good cure for that inveterate disease which self-pity is. The body is full of it, it pities itself as soon as there is the smallest trouble – and that makes it terribly worse.

And then, what goings-on ... The goings-on of the School, oh, those are ...

priceless stories! But yesterday evening, I suddenly became indignant about a boy, the boy who had been accused of copying. He asserted he hadn't copied, and I saw he hadn't (but what I saw was almost worse!), and I said, "No more exams" – a dreadful row everywhere! Then K., who is really a good boy, wrote to me, "Should I not rather tell the boy that you decided he hadn't copied, because he must be worrying?" I thought, "Poor K.!" But anyway, it was a nice gesture, so I said yes. Then he called the boy, told him what he had to, also that exams were abolished and the whole matter was over and done with. As soon as the boy left him, he went and told his friends a world of lies: that I had asked K. to apologize, to express regret and reinstate the boy, and a lot of fibs ... a series of terrible lies (and lies about me). You understand, I had had a movement of sympathy for K. for what he had done; it shows a sort of nobleness of soul in him: he was so  convinced, but he accepted what I said and made that gesture because he thought  the boy must have been worrying. Then the boy's thoroughly disgusting reaction ... I had to restrain myself (inwardly): I was displeased. I had hoped, on the contrary, that that goodwill would give rise to a somewhat noble response, but all that is a sort of degradation.... Yesterday, I was on the point of giving the child an inner slap – I stopped myself from doing so, but he has clearly put himself in a bad spot.

Now they write to ask me, "How can we know whether the children follow if we don't have exams?" I had to explain the difference between a sort of individual control coming from observation, a remark, an unexpected question and so on, which allows the teacher to place the child, and the other method in which you are told, "You will have an exam in eight days and the subject will be what you have learned" – so everyone starts reviewing what he has learned and preparing himself, and that's that: the student with a good memory is the one who passes. I explained all that.

If I had been a teacher, my objection to this decision would not at all have been from the teachers' point of view, but from the students' because I remember my studies, and had you not been obliged every three or six months to review what was learned in school, well, you know, you'd have just let it slip away.

Well, too bad!

But it's a sort of discipline that makes you review things.

If you aren't interested enough in the subject to try and remember it and retain the result of what you've learned, well, too bad, it's too bad for you.

The students' point of view is false, the teachers' point of view is false.

The students' point of view: they learn just to appear to know, pass their exam and cram their heads with all kinds of things.... The teachers' point of view is to have as easy a control as possible and be able to give marks without giving themselves too much trouble, with as little effort as possible. As for me, I say: each student is an individuality, each student should come not because he wants to be able to say, "I have studied and am going to take my exams," but because he is eager to know and comes with the will to know. And the teacher must not follow the easy method of giving a subject and seeing how everyone answers, whether the answer is good or bad, conforms to what he has taught or not: he must find out whether the student's interest and effort are sincere, and everyone according to his own nature – for the teacher it's infinitely more difficult, but that's education. And they protest.” The Mother’s Agenda-26.07.1967,

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5: “But this nature has a density of previous formation which resists and obstructs the descent; even when the higher power has broken the barrier and descended and is at work, we have seen that the nature of the Ignorance resists and obstructs the working, that it either strives to refuse transformation altogether or tries to modify the new power into some conformity with its own workings, or even throws itself upon it to seize and degrade and enslave it to its own way of action and lower purpose. Ordinarily, in their task of assumption and assimilation of this difficult stuff of Nature, the higher powers descend first into the mind and occupy the mind centres because these are nearest to themselves in intelligence and knowledge-power; if they descend first into the heart or into the vital being of force and sensation, as they sometimes do because these happen to be in some individuals more open and call them first, the results are more mixed and dubious, imperfect and insecure than if things happen in the logical order. But, even in its normal working when it takes up the being part by part in the natural order of descent, the descending power is not able to bring about a total occupation and transformation of each before it goes farther. It can only effect a general and incomplete occupation, so that the workings of each remain still partly of the new higher, partly of a mixed, partly of the old unchanged lower order. All the mind in its whole range cannot be transmuted at once, for the mind centres are not a region isolated from the rest of the being; the mind action is penetrated by the action of the vital and physical parts, and in those parts themselves are lower formations of mind, a vital mind, a physical mind, and these have to be changed before there can be an entire transformation of the mental being.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine-993,

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6: "The supermind, as we have seen, lifts up the action of the mental consciousness towards and into the intuition, creates an intermediate intuitive mentality insufficient in itself but greater in power than the logical intelligence, and then lifts up and transforms that too into the true supramental action. The first well-organised action of the supermind in the ascending order is the supramental reason, not a higher logical intellect, but a directly luminous organisation of intimately subjective and intimately objective knowledge, the higher buddhi, the logical or rather the logos Vijnana. The supramental reason does all the work of the reasoning intelligence and does much more, but with a greater power and in a different fashion. It is then itself taken up into a higher range of the power of knowledge and in that too nothing is lost, but all farther heightened, enlarged in scope, transformed in power of action." CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-855-856, "Thought too in the supramental action is a different thing from the thought of the mental intelligence. The supramental thinking is felt at its basis as a conscious contact or union or identity of the substance of being of the knower with the substance of being of the thing known and its figure of thought as the power of awareness of the self revealing through the meeting or the oneness, because carrying in itself, a certain knowledge form of the object’s content, action, significance. Therefore observation, memory, judgment too mean each a different thing in the supermind from what it is in the process of the mental intelligence." CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-856, "The supramental reason observes all that the intelligence observes — and much more; it makes, that is to say, the thing to be known the field of a perceptual action, in a certain way objective, that causes to emerge its nature, character, quality, action. But this is not that artificial objectivity by which the reason in its observation tries to extrude the element of personal or subjective error. The supermind sees everything in the self and its observation must therefore be subjectively objective and much nearer to, though not the same as the observation of our own internal movements regarded as an object of knowledge." CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-856