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Reading
Sweet Mother, You have said that I do not think well. How can one develop one's thought?
You must read with great attention and concentration, not novels or dramas, but books that make you think. You must meditate on what you have read, reflect on a thought until you have understood it. Talk little, remain quiet and concentrated and speak only when it is indispensable. 31 May 1960 I am reading a book on motor-cars, but I read it hastily; I skip the descriptions of complicated mechanisms.
If you don't want to learn a thing thoroughly, conscientiously and in all its details, it is better not to take it up at all. It is a great mistake to think that a little superficial and incomplete knowledge of things can be of any use whatsoever; it is good for nothing except making people conceited, for they imagine they know and in fact know nothing.
Read carefully whatever you read, and read it again a second time if you have not understood it properly.
Y has just written to me about the great number of novels that you read. I do not think that this kind of reading is good for you – and if it is to study style, as you told me, an attentive Page – 142 study of one good book by a good author, done with care, teaches much more than this hasty and superficial reading.
I had two reasons for reading novels, to learn words and style.
In order to learn you must read very carefully and choose with care what you read. 25 October 1934 Do you think I should stop reading Gujarati literature?
It all depends on the effect this literature has on your imagination. If it fills your head with undesirable ideas and your vital with desires, it is certainly better to stop reading this kind of book. 2 November 1934 Is there any harm in my reading novels in French?
Reading novels is never beneficial. 24 April 1937
When one reads dirty books, an obscene novel, does not the vital enjoy through the mind?
In the mind also there are perversions. It is a very poor and unrefined vital which can take pleasure in such things! Page – 143 In unformed minds what they read sinks in without any regard to its value and imprints itself as truth. It is advisable therefore to be careful about what one gives them to read and to see that only what is true and useful for their formation gets a place. 3 June 1939 I do not approve of these literature classes in which, ostensibly for the sake of knowledge (?), they flounder in the mud of a state of mind which is out of place here and which cannot in any way help to build up the consciousness of tomorrow. I repeated this to X yesterday in connection with your letter, and I explained briefly to him how I saw the transition period between what was and what will be. If we could discover, either here or there, the expression of a sincere and luminous aspiration, it could be made into an opportunity for study and become an interesting development. Examine the matter together and let me know what you decide. In any case: no more “literature classes”. 18 July 1959 What is the value of literature?
It depends on what you want to be or do. If you want to be a littérateur, you must read a lot of literature. Then you will know what has been written and you won’t repeat old things. You have to keep an alert mind and know how to say things in a striking manner. But if you want real knowledge, you can't find it in literature. To me, literature as such is on a pretty low level – it is mostly a work of the creative vital, and the highest it reaches Page – 144 is up to the throat centre, the external expressive mind. This mind puts one in relation with outside things. And, in its activity, literature is all a game of fitting ideas to ideas and words to ideas and words to one another. It can develop a certain skill in the mind, some capacity for discussion, description, amusement and wit. I haven't read much of English literature – I have gone through only a few hundred books. But I know French literature very well – I have read a whole library of it. And I can say that it has no great value in terms of Truth. Real knowledge comes from above the mind. What literature gives is the play of a lot of common or petty ideas. Only on a rare occasion does some ray from above come in. If you look into thousands and thousands of books, you will find just one small intuition here and there. The rest is nothing. I can't say that the reading of literature equips one better to understand Sri Aurobindo. On the contrary, it can be a hindrance. For, the same words are used and the purpose for which they are used is so different from the purpose for which Sri Aurobindo has made use of them, the manner in which they have been put together to express things is so different from Sri Aurobindo's that these words tend to put one off from the light which Sri Aurobindo wants to convey to us through them. To get to Sri Aurobindo's light we must empty our minds of all that literature has said and done. We must go inward and stay in a receptive silence and turn it upward. Then alone we get something in the right way. At the worst, I have seen that the study of literature makes one silly and perverse enough to sit in judgment on Sri Aurobindo's English and find fault with his grammar! But, of course, I am not discouraging the teaching of literature altogether. Many of our children are in a crude state and literature can help to give their minds some shape, some suppleness. They need a good deal of carving in many places. They have to be recharged, made active and agile. Literature can serve Page – 145 as a sort of gymnastics and stir up and awaken the young intelligence. I may add that the whole controversy that has gone on among the teachers recently on the value of literature is a storm in a tea-cup. It is really part of a problem which concerns the whole basis of education. All that has been going on in every department of our School is to me one single problem at bottom. When I look at the education everywhere, I feel like the Yogi who was told to sit and meditate in front of a wall. I find myself facing a wall. It is a greyish wall, with some streaks of blue running across it – these are the efforts of the teachers to do something worthwhile – but everything goes on superficially and behind it all is like this wall here on which I am striking my hand now. It is hard and impenetrable, it shuts out the true light. There is no door – one can't enter through it and pass into that light. When the young students come to me and tell me about their work, each time I want to say something useful I find the same solid wall blocking me. I have the intention of taking in hand the problem of education. I am preparing myself for it. It may take two years. But I have warned Pavitra that when I intervene and remould things, it may seem like a cyclone. People may feel that they can no longer stand on their legs! So many matters will get upset. There will be all-round bewilderment at first. But, as a result of the cyclone, the wall will break down and the true light burst in. I thought it fair to say beforehand that there would be a radical change. This way the teachers can be prepared for it. I do not wish to doubt or ignore the goodwill among the teachers of literature. And there are some old teachers who are sincerely doing their best. I appreciate all this. And in my decision on the alternatives set before me by the School I have taken everything into consideration. But the whole discussion, I repeat, has been a lot of unnecessary excitement – what could be called a quarrel among ants or, as one says in French, “Il n'y a pas de quoi fouetter un chat.”¹
1" There is nothing to beat a cat about." Page – 146 There is a subtle world where you can see all possible subjects for paintings, novels, plays of all kinds, even the cinema. It is from there that most authors receive their inspiration.
(A teacher suggested that books dealing with subjects like crime, violence and licentiousness should not be available to young people.)
It is not so much a question of subject-matter but of vulgarity of mind and narrowness and selfish common-sense in the conception of life, expressed in a form devoid of art, greatness or refinement, which must be carefully removed from the reading-matter of children both big and small. All that lowers and degrades the consciousness must be excluded. 1 November 1959
The selection [of books] has to be carefully done. Some of the books contain ideas which are sure to lower the consciousness of our children. Only such books are to be recommended as have some bearing on our Ideal or contain historic tales, adventures or explorations.
One is never too careful with books which have the most pernicious effect. Blessings. 17 April 1967 Page – 147 I have been laying great stress on the stories of the Ramayana and Mahabharata and on the songs of Kabir, Mira, etc. Is it against your way to continue these old things?
Not at all – it is the attitude that is important. The past must be a spring-board towards the future, not a chain preventing from advancing. As I said, all depends on the attitude towards the past.
Some of the best poets and saints have written about the love of Radha and Krishna as if it were carnal love.
I always considered it as an incapacity of finding the true words and the correct language.
Stop reading all this nonsense. The occultism that can be found in books is vital and most dangerous.
If you want to know what is really happening in the world, you should not read newspapers of any sort, for they are full of lies. To read a newspaper is to take part in the great collective falsehoods. 2 February 1970 Mother, How can one know what is happening in other countries and even in our own, if we do not read Page – 148 papers? At least we get some idea from them, don't we? Or would it be better not to read them at all?
I did not say that you must not read papers. I said that you must not blindly believe in all that you read, you must know that truth is quite another thing. Blessings. 4 February 1970 I want to see what will happen to me if I stop reading completely.
It is difficult to keep one's mind always fixed on the same thing, and if it is not given enough work to occupy it, it begins to become restless. So I think it is better to choose one's books carefully rather than stop reading altogether.
(Written on a slip placed in a copy of Prières et Méditations de la Mère}
Do not read this book unless you have the intention of putting it into practice.
A library should be an intellectual sanctuary where one comes to find light and progress. Page – 149 |