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The Central Thuth of The Mother
"And behind her is the Ishwara and faith in him is the most central thing in the sraddha of the integral Yoga. This faith we must have and develop to perfection that all things are the workings under the universal conditions of a supreme self-knowledge and wisdom, that nothing done in us or around us is in vain or without its appointed place and just significance, that all things are possible when the Ishwara as our supreme Self and Spirit takes up the action and that all that has been done before and all that he will do hereafter was and will be part of his infallible and foreseeing guidance and intended towards the fruition of our Yoga and our perfection and our life work. This faith will be more and more justified as the higher knowledge opens, we shall begin to see the great and small significances that escaped our limited mentality and faith will pass into knowledge. Then we shall see beyond the possibility of doubt that all happens within the working of the one Will and that that will was also wisdom because it develops always the true workings in life of the self and nature. The highest state of the assent, the sraddha of the being will be when we feel the presence of the Ishwara and feel all our existence and consciousness and thought and will and action in his hand and consent in all things and with every part of our self and nature to the direct and immanent and occupying will of the Spirit. And that highest perfection of the sraddha will also be the opportunity and perfect foundation of a divine strength: it will base, when complete, the development and manifestation and the works of the luminous supramental Shakti.
Sri Aurobindo
CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-781-782
The Central Truth of The Mother
or
The Book of Faith
“A glad and strong and helpful submission is demanded to the working of the Divine Force, the obedience of the illumined disciple of the Truth, of the inner Warrior who fights against obscurity and falsehood, of the faithful servant of the Divine.
This is the true attitude and only those who can take and keep it, preserve a faith unshaken by disappointments and difficulties and shall pass through the ordeal to the supreme victory and the great transmutation.”31
Sri Aurobindo
“I have said somewhere, or may be written, that no matter how great your faith and trust in the divine Grace, no matter how great your capacity to see it at work in all circumstances, at every moment, at every point in life, you will never succeed in understanding the marvellous immensity of Its Action, and the precision, the exactitude with which this Action is accomplished; you will never be able to grasp to what extent the Grace does everything, is behind everything, organises everything, conducts everything, so that the march forward to the divine realisation may be as swift, as complete, as total and harmonious as possible, considering the circumstances of the world.”15
The Mother
‘The Mother’ book proposes a Vedantic self-discipline in order to arrive at a Tantric aim. It gives us hints that by prolonging the Vedantic sacrifice of static Divine union one will arrive at the dynamic Divine union of Tantric objective. Faith acts as a link through which static Divine union is dynamised and it also serves as a link through which dynamic Divine Shakti penetrates into Material life. So, faith acts as a connecting link in both the ascending and descending action of Consciousness. The faith has its double utility in integral Yoga, that of firstly, (1) the faith in the Divine, Vedantic faith which is defined as ‘ascent of the whole being to the truth seen by it or offered to its acceptance;’5 and the other is (2) faith in the Shakti, Vedic faith, which is defined as Influence27 and Will of the Supreme dynamised as Shakti, directed to press upon the lower nature of mind, life and body to realise the greater truth of self-becoming and self-exceeding.19 It is a free perception or an imperative direction from the inner Spirit.
The dependency on the ever growing static and dynamic faith, sraddha, is felt imperative, in three successive stages. Firstly, we have to change our central faith17 from the formation of ordinary material and mental man that concentrates on the ‘development and satisfaction and interests in the old externalised order of things’1 to a ‘deeper faith and vision which see only the Divine and seek only after the Divine’1. If the equality, the Psychic light and will are already there, then a sure guidance and protection will be present throughout and he will realise that all is done for the best, the progress assured and victory inevitable. The true nature of static faith as defined in the Gita is of triple kind; first is the ‘faith of each man takes the shape, hue, quality given to it by his stuff of being, his constituting temperament, his innate power of existence, sattva¯ nuru¯ pa¯ sarvasya s´raddha¯;’16 secondly, Sraddha is that it is an aspect of the Self, sraddhamayayo Purusha;2 thirdly, whatever is man’s faith that he becomes ultimately, yo yachhadra sa evasah.2 This faith is Divinely fulfilled and culminated in an eternal flame of knowledge, sraddhavan labhate jnanam3. If the central faith is established in the Divine then one’s Spiritual destiny30 is decreed. Secondly the dynamic faith has the magic power to bring the dead back to life, the capacity to turn the bitter poisons of the world into immortal nectar, can see the happier positive Spiritual intention behind all adversity and opposition, the mystery of Divine Love behind all hatred, jealousy and suffering and the flower of Divine strength and joy in the seed of pain. Thirdly a Sadhaka of integral Yoga must remember that he carries with him a fragment of Eternal’s Omnipotence and Omniscience or ‘Godhead’s seed’35 and its entire revelation in his bodily life is the inevitable consequence of his integral faith that is only a will aiming at the realisation of a greater static and dynamic truth. This Integral Faith is really an influence from the supreme Spirit which calls the lower nature to rise out of its petty limitation and narrowness and transforms itself to illimitable Divine Nature.
The two active mental imperfections, samsaya, the sceptical doubt,28 which always turns its back on our total knowledge of Spiritual possibilities and asuya, the constant carping of the narrow uncreative intellect which paralyses5 our collective Ashram living, must however be conquered for the Divine perfection by systematic development of sraddha. We begin this journey with the three elements of complete mental faith on the Divine that are (1) the mind's constant concurrence, (2) strong consent of the will and (3) the heart’s intense delight and submission. The last siddhi, perfection of faith in the Divine Shakti is identified as ‘intimate feeling of her presence and her powers and the satisfied assent of all our being to her workings in and around it.’6
This paper proposes some series of Perfection/siddhi or provisional psycho-physical exercises or mental belief on faith, Sraddha, which is meant for educating one to begin, repeat subsequently and end each day with the revival of highest aspiration of the Soul, towards the God, Light, Freedom, Bliss and Immortality. With Spiritual realisation, our mental faith and ideas become concrete reality, living truth and dynamic power.
In integral Yoga, it is defined that for beginners Vedantic method of self-discipline is indispensable and the Vedic method is dispensable and after one is established in Yoga both the methods are indispensable. If this understanding will not be given importance, then it will give birth to fear, impatience and doubt and one will be under the subjection of Nature. This suggestion is already there as hinted in the Gita where Arjuna was discouraged36 to do Vedic sacrifice in the initial phase of the sadhana and encouraged37 in the final stage of sadhana.
The Indispensable Vedantic Faith or Faith in the static Divine:
1) The first indispensable faith is, “The Divine exists within, above and outside me and my meeting with Him everywhere cannot fail in this life. I want direct contact, Pratakhya, with Him and adore Him in all creatures and extend my infinite gratitude towards Him.”
2) The second indispensable faith is, “There is nothing worth living in my life without Him and He is the only inexhaustible source of all my delight, thought and action and the higher I project this aspiration, the greater the truth that seeks to descend upon me. So, my whole life and all life is a broadening of receptivity and constant prayer offered to Divine.”
3) The third indispensable faith is, “He has taken my full and total responsibility and His sure guidance and protection is present throughout in spite of many dangers, difficulties and failures. His failures are part of the act of His omniscient Omnipotence which knows the right time and circumstance for the incipience, the change of destiny, the immediate and the final results of all its cosmic undertakings.”
4) The fourth indispensable faith is, “He responds to my every call and even to my most external emotional call and gives me this conviction that all unforeseen events and apparent discords are parts of His illimitable secret plan and vast harmony.”
5) The fifth indispensable faith is, “What the Divine wills for me or decides for me is the best and faultless, the progress assured and victory inevitable; He leads me in the shortest possible path towards the ultimate goal in spite of my ignorance, misunderstanding, ego, revolt and cry. This belief can be further extended for His creation that what He decides or what He arranges everywhere all things rightly from the beginning of the creation, whether it seems good or evil to the mortal eye, only for the good and for the best, the Divine Will can work. The Creation exists, moves forward and whatever happens are preparing for far more complete, far more integral than we can imagine and see with the one side of things and are intended for the full satisfaction of the whole vision of the Creator. His Will must be worked out in the passage of time in spite of all evil that rises from the Inconscient sheath, all Ignorance with its obstinate strength, all stumbling of man’s personal will, deep folly of his mind and blind reluctance of his heart.”38 I know ‘that whatever happens in the Divine Providence is for the best even though it may seem to the mind otherwise.’34
6) The sixth indispensable faith is, always we must repeat to the doubting intellect the promise of the Master of the Gita, “I will surely deliver you from all sin and evil; do not grieve.”11 Or the promise of Savitri,
“Yet still to ourselves we say rekindling faith,
“Oh, surely one day he shall come to our cry,
One day he shall create our life anew
And utter the magic formula of peace
And bring perfection to the scheme of things.
One day he shall descend to life and earth,
Leaving the secrecy of the eternal doors,
Into a world that cries to him for help,
And bring the truth that sets the spirit free,
The joy that is the baptism of the soul,
The strength that is the outstretched arm of Love.
One day he shall lift his beauty’s dreadful veil,
Impose delight on the world’s beating heart
And bare his secret body of light and bliss.””12
7) The seventh indispensable faith is, “He is all Love, all Ananda, all Beauty, all Peace, all Knowledge and all Light and He is ready to pour these Divine attributes when called upon.”
Dispensable Vedic Faith or Faith in the dynamic Shakti18:
“One day I shall behold my great sweet world
Put off the dire disguises of the gods,
Unveil from terror and disrobe from sin.
Appeased we shall draw near our mother’s face,
We shall cast our candid souls upon her lap;
Then shall we clasp the ecstasy we chase,
Then shall we shudder with the long-sought god,
Then shall we find Heaven’s unexpected strain.”
Savitri-613
In addition to Vedantic faith we can practice remembering some specialised form of faith or dispensable faith to remould some of our finest faculty. Once the indispensable faith establishes the Spiritual base, the practice of dispensable faith helps to integrate it. So, the dispensable faith becomes indispensable and more profoundly its necessity is felt in the difficult transformation action of integral Yoga.
1) ‘Faith is certainly a gift given to us by the Divine Grace. It is like a door suddenly opening upon an eternal truth, through which we can see it, almost touch it.’4 For Supramental descent ‘An entire faith, opening, self-giving to the Mother are the one condition necessary throughout.’22 The first dispensable faith is, “If the faith and surrender are complete in all parts of the being then there can be no attack. If there is a strong central faith and surrender at all times, then there can be attacks but the attacks will have no chance of success.”20
2) When we suffer long or stumble in the darkness the sceptic mind murmurs, “I have trusted to the Highest and I am betrayed into suffering and sin and error.”14 So when doubt, depression, tamas and insincerity predominates over the nature then the mantra of repetition is, “Never mind, my aspiration will come back again. Meanwhile I know that The Mother is with me even when I do not feel Her, She will carry me through even the darkest period.”24 ‘Even when you cannot aspire actively, keep yourself turned to the Mother for the help to come — that is the one thing to do always.’32 ‘What the psychic always feels is “What the Mother does is for the best”, and it accepts all with gladness. It is the vital part of the heart that is easily touched by the suggestions.’23
3) When all higher experience is forgotten and bitterness of life comes to the surface, the sceptic mind repeats, “I have staked my whole life on an idea which the stern facts of experience contradict and discourage. It would have been better to be as other men are who accept their limitations and walk on the firm ground of normal experience.”14 To all such suggestions of impurity, weakness, unfitness, turn back from Divine labour and Spiritual fall due to temporary defeat repeat the mantra, “I am a child of Immortality chosen by the Divine; I have but to be true to myself and Him --the victory is sure; even if I fell, I would rise again.”7 “Do not think whether people agree with you or do not agree with you or whether you are good or bad, but think only that “the Mother loves me and I am the Mother’s.” If you base your life on that thought, everything will soon become easy.”39
4) The rajasic and sattwic egoism are eliminated by concentration of the following mantra, “A Divine (Mother) Power works in this mind and body and it is the same that works in all men and in the animal, in the plant and in the metal, in conscious and living things and in things apparently inconscient and inanimate.”8
5) To all suggestions of death, disease and accident repeat the mantra, “No part of my being supports or dwell upon the disease of the body. All disease, all accidents and all death are a perfect illusion and non-existent to the true consciousness of the body.” Additionally, the promise of Savitri that she keeps her will to divinise the clay in spite of repeated failure, prolonged defeat and dead resistance. Always she drives the Souls to new attempt of winning victory over death and fate, plants heaven’s delight on heart’s passionate mire, pours godhead’s seeking into a bare beast frame and hides immortality in the mask of death.13
6) Always we must persist unwearied to the last in the atmosphere of every contradicting event and disillusionment and adhere to the injunction of The Gita, “Yoga must be continually practised without yielding to any discouragement by difficulty or failure until the bliss of Nirvana is secured.”9 and for the Divine Shakti in man nothing is impossible. Every thought and impulse have to be reminded in the language of the Kena Upanishad, “That is the Divine Power of Brahman and not this which men here cherish and adore.”25
7) The seventh dispensable faith is, “A wise impersonality, a quiescent equality, a universality which sees all things as the manifestations of the Divine (Mother), the one Existence, is not angry, troubled, impatient with the way of things or on the other hand excited, over-eager and precipitate, but sees that the law must be obeyed and the pace of time respected, observes and understands with sympathy the actuality of things and beings, but looks also behind the present appearance to their inner significances and forward to the unrolling of their divine possibilities, is the first thing demanded of those who would do works as the perfect instruments of the Divine (Mother).” 10
8) The eighth dispensable faith is, “Divine is All and by the entire descent of His Shakti all the problems of existence can be resolved instantly. But for such a descent to be practicable we have to enlarge the purity of the subtle and causal body indefinitely. It is only they who ascend in their consciousness to the luminous Source or enter the Spiritual experience of Origin of existence they only can avoid and overcome catastrophes26 of all kinds and will stand in a golden glory.”
Recapitulation:
“Only were safe who kept God in their hearts:
Courage their armour, faith their sword, they must walk,
The hand ready to smite, the eye to scout,
Casting a javelin regard in front,
Heroes and soldiers of the army of Light.”
Savitri-211
“Happy are men anchored on fixed belief…
Happiest who stand on faith as on a rock”
Savitri-499
“There is one kind of faith demanded as indispensable by the integral Yoga and that may be described as faith in God and the Shakti, faith in the presence and power of the Divine in us and the world, a faith that all in the world is the working of one divine Shakti, that all the steps of the Yoga, its strivings and sufferings and failures as well as its successes and satisfactions and victories are utilities and necessities of her workings and that by a firm and strong dependence on and a total self-surrender to the Divine and to his Shakti in us we can attain to oneness and freedom and victory and perfection.”5
Sri Aurobindo
“— but that he who desires only the Divine shall reach the Divine is a certitude much more certain than that two and two make four. That is the faith every sadhak must have in the bottom of his heart, supporting him through every stumble and blow and ordeal. It is only false ideas still casting their shadow on your mind that prevent you from having it. Push them aside for good and see this simple inner truth in a simple and straightforward way — the back of the difficulty will be broken.”21
Sri Aurobindo
Once the centralised faith is established in the Divine, then an individual’s higher Spiritual life is decreed. Then this faith has to be integralised through psycho-physical exercise as stated above followed by Spiritual union of Ishwara and Ishwari and Supramental union of Brahman and Maya. Once the faith is integralised then an individual’s Supramental destiny is decreed. After the centralised faith is established in the Divine, then the centralising thought shuns its former dividing nature and retains its power of Truth and Oneness and once the faith is integralised, then the reconciling wisdom is activated which harmonises all the inarticulate murmur and disjointed mutterings of the Inconscient and unites Matter and Spirit.
The utility and necessity of doubt is felt at a certain stage of sadhana of integral Yoga because man in his ignorance and in his progressive labour towards knowledge would remain obstinate in an ignorant belief and limited knowledge. Now whatever new ideas seize us or are generated through our writings and expressions demand our credence but they are not without regard to their possible error, limitation, imperfection and influence of three gunas. So, all ideas and suggestions can be held in suspense until it is given its right place and luminous shape of truth through Psychic and Spiritual intervention and further strengthened and fulfilled by Supramental knowledge. This is what is confirmed in the Gita that through faith, sraddha, the knowledge of Psychic Being and Spiritual being are gained, sraddhavan labhate jnanam3 and the innate Nature of Psychic being and Spiritual being are made up of faith, shraddha mayoyam purusho.2 The utility and necessity of doubt will cease to exist when ‘the foundation of equality is firmly established’33 and ‘when the sun of the gnosis has risen.’33
In integral Yoga, faith is utilised to remove two imperfections of sceptical doubt, samsaya, and narrow carping, asuya. Faith is identified as the pivot of all endeavour and action related with the increase29 of means of sadhana such as (1) aspiration, (2) rejection of lower nature, (3) surrender and (4) sincerity. Faith further helps for (1) the perfection and surrender of the four fundamental Executrix Mother Powers or Soul powers of Brahma Shakti, Kshetra Shakti, Vaisya Shakti and Shudra Shakti, (2) the perfection and surrender of four instrumental nature, intellect, heart, vital and body, (3) perfection and dynamisation of four mediatrix Mother Powers or Spiritual powers that of Maheswari, Mahakali, Mahalakshmi and Mahasaraswati and finally (4) leading towards the dynamisation and culmination of four Creatrix Mother Powers or Supramental power that of Truth Supreme, Power Supreme, Supreme Delight and Will Supreme.
OM TAT SAT
References: -
1: “The first necessity is to dissolve that central faith and vision in the mind which concentrate it on its development and satisfaction and interests in the old externalised order of things. It is imperative to exchange this surface orientation for the deeper faith and vision which see only the Divine and seek only after the Divine. The next need is to compel all our lower being to pay homage to this new faith and greater vision.” Sri Aurobindo/ CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/72, ““Since I want only the Divine, my success is sure, I have only to walk forward in all confidence and His own Hand will be there secretly leading me to Him by His own way and at His own time.” That is what you must keep as your constant mantra and it is besides the only logical and reasonable thing to do — for anything else is an irrational self-contradiction of the most glaring kind. Anything else one may doubt — whether the supermind will come down, whether this world can ever be anything but a field of struggle for the mass of men, — these can be rational doubts — but that he who desires only the Divine shall reach the Divine is a certitude much more certain than that two and two make four. That is the faith every sadhak must have in the bottom of his heart, supporting him through every stumble and blow and ordeal. It is only false ideas still casting their shadow on your mind that prevent you from having it. Push them aside for good and see this simple inner truth in a simple and straightforward way — the back of the difficulty will be broken.” SABCL-23/Letters on Yoga/584-585, CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-97, “But if we desire to make the most of the opportunity that this life gives us, if we wish to respond adequately to the call we have received and to attain to the goal we have glimpsed, not merely advance a little towards it, it is essential that there should be an entire self-giving. The secret of success in Yoga is to regard it (goal is Divine.) not as one of the aims to be pursued in life, but as the one and only aim, not as an important part of life, but as the whole of life.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-71
2: “(1) The faith of each man takes the shape given to it by his stuff of being, O Bharata. (2) This Purusha, this soul in man, is, as it were, made of shraddha, a faith, a will to be a belief in itself and existence, and (3) whatever is that will, faith or constituting belief in him, he is that and that is he.” The Gita-17.3,
3: The Gita-4.39,
4: TMCW-9/Questions and answers-1957-1958/351,
5: “The perfect faith is an assent of the whole being to the truth seen by it or offered to its acceptance, and its central working is a faith of the soul in its own will to be and attain and become and its idea of self and things and its knowledge, of which the belief of the intellect, the heart’s consent and the desire of the life mind to possess and realise are the outward figures.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/771, “And yet faith is necessary throughout and at every step because it is a needed assent of the soul and without this assent there can be no progress. Our faith must first be abiding in the essential truth and principles of the Yoga, and even if this is clouded in the intellect, despondent in the heart, outwearied and exhausted by constant denial and failure in the desire of the vital mind, there must be something in the innermost soul which clings and returns to it, otherwise we may fall on the path or abandon it from weakness and inability to bear temporary defeat, disappointment, difficulty and peril. In the Yoga as in life it is the man who persists unwearied to the last in the face of every defeat and disillusionment and of all confronting, hostile and contradicting events and powers who conquers in the end and finds his faith justified because to the soul and Shakti in man nothing is impossible. And even a blind and ignorant faith is a better possession than the sceptical doubt which turns its back on our spiritual possibilities or the constant carping of the narrow pettily critical uncreative intellect, asu¯ya, which pursues our endeavour with a paralysing incertitude. The seeker of the integral Yoga must however conquer both these imperfections.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/773, “The Divine Grace and Power can do everything, but with the full assent of the sadhak. To learn to give that full assent is the whole meaning of the sadhana. It may take time either because of ideas in the mind, desires in the vital or inertia in the physical consciousness, but these things have to be and can be removed with the aid or by calling in the action of the Divine Force.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-171
6: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/781,
7: CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II-p-99, “Keep firm faith in the victory of the Light and face with calm equanimity the resistances of Matter and human personality to their own transformation.” SABCL-23/Letters on Yoga-II-III-585, “They (faith, surrender and samata) have to be put into every part and atom of the being so that there may be no possibility of a contrary vibration anywhere.” SABCL-23/Letters on Yoga-II-III-584,
8: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/250,
9: The Gita-6.23,
10: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/700,
11: The Gita-18-66,
12: Savitri-200,
13: Savitri-354,
14: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/244,
15: The Mother’s Centenary Works (second edition)/8/250,
16: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita-481-482,
17: “And behind her (Shakti) is the Ishwara and faith in him is the most central thing in the s´raddha of the integral Yoga. This faith we must have and develop to perfection that all things are the workings under the universal conditions of a supreme self-knowledge and wisdom, that nothing done in us or around us is in vain or without its appointed place and just significance, that all things are possible when the Ishwara as our supreme Self and Spirit takes up the action and that all that has been done before and all that he will do hereafter was and will be part of his infallible and foreseeing guidance and intended towards the fruition of our Yoga and our perfection and our life work.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/781,
18: “The Shakti in her workings will strike ruthlessly at all forms of ignorance and blindness and all even that trusts wrongly and superstitiously in her, and we must be prepared to abandon a too persistent attachment to forms of faith and cling to the saving reality alone. A great and wide spiritual and intelligent faith, intelligent with the intelligence of that larger reason which assents to high possibilities, is the character of the s´raddha needed for the integral Yoga.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/774
19: “This s´raddha — the English word faith is inadequate to express it — is in reality an influence from the supreme Spirit (descending faith) and its light a message from our supramental being which is calling the lower nature to rise out of its petty present to a great self-becoming and self-exceeding.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/774, “What is meant by one’s own force? All force is cosmic and the individual is merely an instrument — a certain amount of the force may be stored in him, but that does not make it his own… There are certain possibilities in the way of the experience. First there is the faith, or sometimes a mental realisation and this of itself is enough to make one open to the Mother’s force so that it is always available at need or call. Even if one does not feel the Force coming, yet the results are there and visible. The next is when one feels oneself like an instrument and is aware of the Energy using it. A third is the contact with the Power above and its descent (spontaneous or at call) into the body — this is the more concrete way of having it, for one physically feels the Force working in one. Finally there is a state of awareness of close contact with the Mother (inward) which brings a similar result.” CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother-202
20: CWSA-31/Letters on Yoga-IV/p-794,
21: CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II-p-97,
22: CWSA-32/The Mother and Letters on the Mother-157,
23: CWSA-32/The Mother and Letters on the Mother-163,
24: CWSA-31/Letters on Yoga-IV-676,
25: Kena Upanishada-1.4, CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-72, CWSA-21/The Life Divine-403,
26: “Only those who have an aspiration, a sincere and unconditional aspiration towards the Divine, only they will escape – they will stand in a golden glory.” The Mother’s Agenda-May 4, 1972, “... It presses down on Matter, to force it, to compel it to turn INWARDLY to the Divine – not an external flight (pointing above) but inwardly turning to the Divine. And the apparent outcome seems to be inevitable catastrophes. But along with this sense of inevitable catastrophe, there come solutions to situations or events that look simply miraculous…As if both extremes were becoming more extreme: the good getting better and the bad worse. Like that. And a stupendous Power PRESSING down on the world. Such is my impression.” The Mother’s agenda/May 6, 1972, “Certain ideas of a more general, more extensive, more collective nature, as it were, are being worked out and are at work in the world. And the two go together: a greater and more total possibility of destruction and an inventiveness that unrestrainedly increases the possibility of catastrophe, a catastrophe that would be much more massive than it has ever been; and at the same time, the birth, or rather the manifestation, of much higher and more comprehensive ideas and wills which, when heard, will bring a vaster, more extensive, more complete and more perfect solution than before.” The Mother’s Agenda-June 1958,
27: “There are no conditions for receiving the influence of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother except faith, an entire sincerity in following the spiritual path and a will and capacity to open oneself to the influence; but this capacity usually comes as the result of sincerity and faith.” CWSA-32/The Mother with letters on the Mother-106,
28: “I don’t think that real faith is so very super abundant in this Asram. There are some who have it, but for the most part I have met not only doubt, but sharp criticism, constant questioning, much mockery of faith and spiritual experience, violent attacks on myself and the Mother — and that has been going on for the last fourteen years and more. Things are not so bad as they were, but there is plenty of it left still, and I do not think the time has come when the danger of an excessive faith is likely to take body.” 28 June 1934/CWSA-32/The Mother with letters on the Mother-114,
29: “There is no method in this Yoga except to concentrate, preferably in the heart, and call the presence and power of the Mother to take up the being and by the workings of her force transform the consciousness; one can concentrate also in the head or between the eyebrows, but for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is a beginning of experience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be. For the rest one must not depend on one’s own efforts only, but succeed in establishing a contact with the Divine and a receptivity to the Mother’s Power and Presence.” CWSA-32/The Mother with letters on the Mother-217,
30: “Keep faith in your spiritual destiny, draw back from error and open more the psychic being to the direct guidance of the Mother’s light and power. If the central will is sincere, each recognition of a mistake can become a stepping-stone to a truer movement and a higher progress.” CWSA-32/The Mother with letters on the Mother-228,
31: CWSA-32/The Mother with letters on the Mother-5,
32: CWSA-32/The Mother with letters on the Mother-294,
33: “The Divine holds our hand through all and if he seems to let us fall, it is only to raise us higher. This saving return we shall experience so often that the denials of doubt will become eventually impossible and, when once the foundation of equality is firmly established and still more when the sun of the gnosis has risen, doubt itself will pass away because its cause and utility have ended.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga-775,
34: CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-I-528,
35: Savitri-73,
36: “The action of the three gunas is the subject-matter of the Veda; but do thou become free from the triple guna, O Arjuna; without the dualities, ever based in the true being, without getting or having, possessed of the self.” The Gita-2.45,
37: “He who continually remembers Me, thinking of none else, the Yogin, O Partha, who is in constant union with Me, finds Me easy to attain.” The Gita-8.14, “Worship given to the godhead, to the twice-born, to the spiritual guide, to the wise, cleanness, candid dealing, sexual purity and avoidance of killing and injury to others, are called the askesis of the body.” The Gita-17.14, “Therefore with the pronunciation of OM the acts of sacrifice, giving and askesis as laid down in the rules are always commenced by the knowers of the Brahman.” The Gita-17.24,
38: Savitri-444,
39: CWSA-32/The Mother with letters on the Mother/p-480,
“It is binding on the developing (Soul) but not yet perfectly developed individual in the shape of social duty, family obligation, communal or national demand, so long as it is not in conflict with his growing sense of the higher Right. But the sadhaka of the Karmayoga will abandon this also to the Lord of works. After he has made this surrender, his social impulses and judgments will, like his desires, only be used for their exhaustion or, it may be, so far as they are still necessary for a time to enable him to identify his lower mental nature with mankind in general or with any grouping of mankind in its works and hopes and aspirations. But after that brief time is over, they will be withdrawn and a divine government will alone abide. He will be identified with the Divine and with others only through the divine consciousness and not through the mental nature.”
Sri Aurobindo
CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga-210-211
“Hatred and disliking and scorn and repulsion, clinging and attachment and preference are natural, necessary, inevitable at a certain stage: they attend upon or they help to make and maintain Nature’s choice in us. But to the Karmayogin they are a survival, a stumbling-block, a process of the Ignorance and, as he progresses, they fall away from his nature. The child-soul needs them for its growth; but they drop from an adult (Soul) in the divine culture.”
Sri Aurobindo
CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga-223
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