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SADHANA THROUGH WORK FOR THE MOTHER WORK FOR THE MOTHER AND SADHANA
Work for the Mother done with the right concentration on her is as much a Sadhana as meditation and inner experiences.
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Those who do work for the Mother in all sincerity are prepared by the work itself for the right consciousness even if they do not sit down for meditation or follow any particular practice of Yoga. It is not necessary to tell you how to meditate; whatever is needful will come of itself, if in your work and at all times you are sincere and keep yourself open to the Mother.
NECESSITY OF WORK IN INTEGRAL YOGA
To go entirely inside in order to have experiences and to neglect the work, the external consciousness, is to be unbalanced, one-sided in the Sadhana ― for our Yoga is integral; so also to throw oneself outward and live in the external being alone is to be unbalanced, one-sided in the Sadhana. One must have the same consciousness in inner experience and outward action and make both full of the Mother.
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It is not well to spend the whole time or the greater part of the time in meditation unless one is very strong in mind ― for one gets into the habit of living in an inner world entirely and losing touch with external realities ― this brings in a one-sided inharmonious movement and may lead to disturbance of balance. To do both meditation and work and dedicate both to the Mother is the best thing. 6-8-1933 *
Page - 199 It is not our experience that by meditation alone it is possible to change the nature, nor has retirement from outward activity and work much profited those who have tried it; in many cases it has been harmful. A certain amount of concentration, an inner aspiration in the heart and an opening of the consciousness to the Mother's presence there and to the descent from above are needed. But without action, without work the nature does not really change; it is there and by contact with men that there is the test of the change in the nature. As for the work one does, there is no higher or lower work; all work is the same provided it is offered to the Mother and done for her and in her power. 6-10-1934 *
This happens when the work is always associated with the Mother's thought, done as an offering to her, with the call to do it through you. All ideas of ego, all association of egoistic feelings with the work must disappear. One begins to feel the Mother's force doing the work; the psychic grows through a certain inner attitude behind the work and the ādhāra becomes open both to the psychic intuitions and influences from within and to the descent from above. Then the result of meditation can come through the work itself.
Q: X says that he cannot feel your presence during work as he can during meditation. He does not understand how work can help him. A: He has to learn to consecrate his work and feel the Mother's power working through it. A purely sedentary subjective realisation is only a half realisation. 23-1-1934 *
The Mother does not think that it is good to give up all work and only read and meditate. Work is part of the Yoga and it
Page - 200 gives the best opportunity for calling down the Presence, the Light and the Power into the vital and its activities; it increases also the field and the opportunity of surrender.
It is not enough to remember that the work is the Mother's ― and the results also. You must learn to feel the Mother's forces behind you and to open to the inspiration and the guidance. Always to remember by an effort of the mind is too difficult; but if you get into the consciousness in which you feel always the Mother's force in you or supporting you, that is the true thing.
The Mother does not usually give specific advice such as you ask for in regard to the Insurance Company. You must learn to get the true inspiration in the mind's silence. 18-8-1932 *
Q: Will those who live in peace and Samata but do no work for the Mother or do little work get transformation ? A: No, they do not get transformed at all. 7-5-1933 TWO STAGES OF UNION WITH THE MOTHER'S FORCE
The feeling that all one does is from the Divine, that all action is the Mother's is a necessary step in experience, but one cannot remain in it ― one has to go farther. Those can remain in it who do not want to change the nature, but only to have the experience of the Truth behind it. Your action is according to universal Nature and in that again it is according to your individual nature, and all Nature is a force put out by the Divine Mother for the action of the universe. But as things are it is an action of the Ignorance and the ego; while what we want is an action of the divine Truth unveiled and undeformed by the Ignorance and the ego.
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So when you feel that your actions are all done by the force (Shakti) of the Mother, that is the true experience. But the will of the Mother is that all you do should be done not by her force in Nature as now, but her own direct force in the Truth of her nature, the higher divine Nature. So also it was correct, what you thought afterwards, that unless there is this change, the I experience that all you do is done by her will cannot be altogether true. So it will not be permanent till then. For if it were permanent now, it might keep you in the lower action as it does many and prevent or retard the change. What you need as a permanent experience now is that of the Mother's Force working in you in all things to change this ignorant consciousness and nature into her divine consciousness and nature.
It is the same with the truth about the instrument. It is true that each thing is an instrument of the cosmic Shakti, therefore of the Mother. But the aim of the Sadhana is to become a conscious and perfect instrument instead of one that is unconscious and therefore imperfect. One can be a conscious and perfect instrument only when one is no longer acting in obedience to the ignorant push of the lower nature but in surrender to the Mother and aware of her higher Force acting within oneself. So here too your intuition was perfectly true.
But all this cannot be done in a day. So you are once more right in not being anxious or uneasy. One must be vigilant, but not anxious and uneasy. The Mother's Force will act and bring the result in its own time, provided one offers all to her and aspires and is vigilant, calling and remembering her at all times, rejecting quietly all that stands in the way of the action of her transforming Force.
Your second view of this was more from the right angle vision than the first. To say, "it is not I who have to act, so I need not mind", is to say too much ― one has to act in so far as one has to aspire, offer oneself, assent to the Mother's working, reject all else, more and more surrender. All else will be done in time, there is no need for anxiety or depression or impatience. 13-7-1935 *
Page - 202 At first one must put one's will in union with the Mother's will knowing that it is an instrument only and that it is the Mother's will behind that alone can give the result. Afterwards when one becomes conscious fully of the Mother's force working within, then the personal will is replaced by the divine. 15-7-1935 *
There should be not only a general attitude, but each work should be offered to the Mother so as to keep the attitude a living one all the time. There should be at the time of work no meditation, for that would withdraw the attention from the work, but there should be the constant memory of the One to whom you offer it. This is only a first process; for when you can have constantly the feeling of a calm being within concentrated in the sense of the Divine Presence while the surface mind does the work, or when you can begin to feel always that it is the Mother's force that is doing the work and you are only a channel or an instrument, then in place of memory there will have begun the automatic constant realisation of Yoga, divine union, in works.
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Everybody is in the Mother, but one must become conscious of that, not of the work only. 1-4- 1935 *
Q: Is it true that one should feel that it is the Divine Presence which moves one and does everything for one ? Would it be possible to feel it without a union with the Divine Mother ? A: No - that is itself a union with her ― to feel the Divine Presence above or in you and moving you. 14-7- 1933 *
Page - 203 Q: Today I felt as if someone else than myself was carrying out my actions. Of course I was there, but in the background. Was it not the Mother's Force trying to take me into itself integrally ? A: It is too much to say that. What you say amounts only to some glimpse of the cosmic Force behind all the actions. 2-6-1934 *
Q: How can the will be made one with the Mother's Will ? A: The will can be made one with the Mother's by establishing a constant contact of the consciousness with hers. 24-6-1933 *
Q: What is meant by "establishing a constant contact of the consciousness" with the Modher which you say is necessary for union with her Will ? Does it mean mental contact or psychic ? A: It means the whole — with the psychic as the base. 25-6-1933 *
Q: My psychological analysis indicates that it is no always possible for us, Sadhaks, to let the Mother work in us spontaneously. For often something in us keeps of and closes the doors against her. I think the best course would be to develop our will - power, so that something might be always there to help us reopen the doors. I mean here the will not of the vital or mental kind but the true will-power. Would you kindly enlighten me as to how to develop it ?
Page - 204 A: The only way to do it is (1) to become aware of a conscious Force behind that uses the mind etc. (2) to learn by practice to direct that Force towards its object. I don't suppose you will find it easy to do either of these things at once — one must first learn to live more deeply in the inner consciousness than you have done hitherto. 16-7-1934
CONDITIONS FOR FOLLOWING THE MOTHER'S WILL
The conditions for following the Mother's Will are to turn to her for Light and Truth and Strength, and aspire that no other force shall influence or lead you, to make no demands or conditions in the vital, to keep a quiet mind ready to receive the Truth, but not insisting on its own ideas and formations, — finally, to keep the psychic awake and in front, so that you may be in a constant contact and know truly what her will is; for the mind and vital can mistake other impulsions and suggestions for the Divine Will, but the psychic once awakened makes no mistake.
A perfect perfection is only possible after supramentalisation; but a relative good working is possible on the lower planes, if one is in contact with the Divine and careful, vigilant and conscious in mind and vital and body. That is a condition, besides, which is preparatory and almost indispensable for the supreme liberation.
THE BASIS OF DIVINE LIFE
To be entirely sincere means to desire the divine Truth only, to surrender yourself more and more to the Divine Mother, to reject all personal demand and desire other than this one aspiration, to offer every action in life to the Divine and do it as the work given without bringing in the ego. This is the basis of the divine life.
One cannot become altogether this at once, but if one aspires at all times and calls in always the aid of the Divine Shakti with
Page - 205 a true heart and straightforward will, one grows more and more into this consciousness.
TRUE CONSCIOUSNESS OF KARMAYOGA
He should carry on his work and do all things else in the right consciousness, offering all he does to the Mother and keeping in inner touch with her. All work done in that spirit and with that consciousness becomes Karmayoga and can be regarded as part of his Sadhana.
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What you received and kept in the work is indeed the true basic consciousness of Karmayoga — the calm consciousness from above supporting and the strength from above doing the work, with that the Bhakti which feels it to be the Mother's Consciousness present and working. You know now by experience what is the secret of Karmayoga. 15-9-1936 RIGHT ATTITUDE IN WORK
Not only in your inward concentration, but in your outwards acts and movements you must take the right attitude. If you do that and put everything under the Mother's guidance, you will find that difficulties begin to diminish or are much more easily got over and things become steadily smoother. In your work and acts you must do the same as in your concentration. Open to the Mother, put them under her guidance, call in the peace, the supporting Power, the protection and, in order that they may work, reject all wrong influences that might come in their way by creating wrong, careless or unconscious movements.
Follow this principle and your whole being will become one under one rule, in the peace and sheltering Power and Light.
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Page -206 The Truth for you is to feel the Divine in you, open to the Mother and work for the Divine till you are aware of her in all your activities. There must be the consciousness of the divine presence in your heart and the divine guidance in your acts. This the psychic being can easily, swiftly, deeply feel if it is fully awake; once the psychic has felt it, it can spread to the mental and vital also.
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Demands should not be made; what you receive freely from the Mother helps you; what you demand or try to impose on her is bound to be empty of her force.
The Mother deals with each person differently according to his true need (not what he himself fancies to be his need) and his progress in the Sadhana and his nature.
For you the most effective way to get the strength you need should be to do the work consciously and scrupulously, allowing nothing to interfere with its exact discharge. If you did that, opening yourself at the same time to the Mother in your work, you would receive more constantly the grace and would come to feel her power doing the work through you; you would thus be able to live constantly with the sense of her presence. If, on the contrary, you allow your fancies or desires to interfere with your work or are careless and negligent, you interrupt the flow of her grace and give room for sorrow and uneasiness and other foreign forces to enter into you. Yoga through work is the easiest and most effective way to enter into the stream of this Sadhana.
8-3-1930
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Even the most purely physical and mechanical work cannot be properly done if one accepts incapacity, inertia and passivity. The remedy is not to confine yourself to mechanical work, but to reject and throw off incapacity, passivity and inertia and open yourself to the Mother's force. If vanity, ambition and self-conceit stand in your way, cast them from you. You will not get
Page -207 rid of these things by merely waiting for them to disappear. If you merely wait for things to happen, there is no reason why they should happen at all. If it is incapacity and weakness that oppose, still, as one opens oneself truly and more and more to the Mother's force, the strength and capacity necessary for the work will be given and will grow in the ādhāra.
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The advantage of being in the true consciousness is that you have the right awareness and its will being in harmony with the Mother's will, you can call in the Mother's Force to make the change. Those who live in the mind and the vital are not so well able to do this; they are obliged to use mostly their personal effort and as the awareness and will and force of the mind and vital are divided and imperfect, the work done is imperfect and not definitive. It is only in the Supermind that Awareness, Will, Force are always one movement and automatically effective.
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Q: I am always in touch with the Mother during work. Not only do I remember her but the contact with her remains during work. Her Force constantly flows into the Adhara and the work is done automatically, but swiftly, perfectly, unhesitatingly — without personal anxieties and responsibilities; instead, there is confidence, sureness, strength, calmness. I feel that if I can do work in this attitude, it will be perfect, flawless, the work of the Mother's child, not of an egoistic man. Kindly let me know if I am correct. A: Yes, it is a very good progress and the first step towards the right use of the Power for action.
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Q: I have read both in "The Synthesis of Yoga" and
Page - 208 the Mother's "Conversations" that every act and movement, thought and word should be an offering. Even if this is a strictly mental effort without the heart's devotion, as it may be at first, it is sure to lead to devotion, provided the effort is sincere. This discipline is quite possible in acts of a more or less mechanical nature like walking or eating, but where the work involves mental concentration, as in reading or writing, it seems well-nigh impossible. If the consciousness has to be busy with the remembrance, the attention will get divided and the work will not be properly done. A: It is because people live in the surface mind and are identified with it. When one lives more inwardly, it is only the surface consciousness that is occupied and one stands behind it in another which is silent and self-offered.
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Q: Does this consciousness come only by aspiration or can one have it by following a mental discipline ? A: One starts by a mental effort. Afterwards it is an inner consciousness that is formed which need not be always thinking of the Mother.
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Q: There are two ways of making an offering to the Mother: one is to offer an act at her feet as one might offer a flower; the other is to withdraw one's personality altogether and to feel as if she is doing all the actions which one performs. In the first way there is duality between the worker and her; but in the second there is a close intimacy and union. Which of these two ways is better for the Sadhana ? A: There is no need to ask which is the better as they are not mutually exclusive. It is the mind that regards them as opposites.
Page - 209 The psychic being can offer the act while the nature is passive to the Force (the ego being expunged or having withdrawn) and feels the Mother's Force doing the act and her Presence in it. 5-11-1938 *
Q: When one works, one aspires for the Mother's Force to take up one's activity in due course. What should one aspire for when one is not working ? A: For the Mother's power to work and bring down by the proper stages the higher consciousness. Also for the system to be more and more fit — quiet, egoless, surrendered.
NEED OF MASTERY IN WORK.
Mother does not disapprove of your writing a book — what she does not like is your being so lost in it that you can do nothing else. You must be master of what you do and not possessed by it. She quite agrees to your finishing and offering the book on your birthday if that can be done. But you must not be carried away — you must keep your full contact with higher things. 1-5-1934 CONDITIONS OF PERFECT SERVICE
Efface the stamp of ego from the heart and let the love of the Mother take its place. Cast from the mind all insistence on your personal ideas and judgments, then you will have the wisdom to understand her. Let there be no obsession of self-will, ego-drive in the action, love of personal authority, attachment to personal preference, then the Mother's force will be able to act clearly in you and you will get the inexhaustible energy for which you ask and your service will be perfect. 27-11-1940
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Page - 210 Yes, that is the most important thing — to get over ego, anger, personal dislikes, self-regarding sensitiveness, etc. Work is not only for work's sake, but as a field of Sadhana, for getting rid of the lower personality and its reactions and acquiring a full surrender to the Divine. As for the work itself, it must be done according to the organisation arranged or sanctioned by the Mother. You must always remember that it is her work and not personally yours. 23-3-1935 *
I can only repeat what I have already written whenever these circumstances and feelings come to you. To leave your work is not a solution — it is through work that one can detect and progressively get rid of the feelings and movements that are contrary to the Yogic ideal — those of the ego.
Work should be done for the Mother and not for oneself, — that is how one encourages the growth of the psychic being and overcomes the ego. The test is to do the work given by the Mother without abhimāna or insistence or personal choice or prestige, — not getting hurt by anything that touches the pride, amour-propre or personal preference.
It is a high and great ideal that is put before the Sadhak through work and it is not possible to realise it suddenly, but to grow steadily into it is spossible, if one keeps the aim always before one — to be a selfless and perfectly tempered instrument for the work of the Divine Mother. 28-9-1935 THE IMPERSONAL WORKER
To be impersonal generally is not to be ego-centric, not to regard things from the point of view of how they affect oneself, but to see what things are in themselves, to judge impartially, to do what is demanded by the purpose of things or by the will of the Master of things, not by one's own personal point of view or egoistic interest or ego-formed idea or feeling. In work it is to
Page - 211 do what is best for the work, without regard to one's own prestige or convenience, not to regard the work as one's own but as the Mother's, to do it according to rule, discipline, impersonal arrangement, even if conditions are not favourable to do the best according to the conditions, etc., etc. The impersonal worker puts his best capacity, zeal, industry into the work, but not his personal ambitions, vanity, passions. He has always something in view that is greater than his little personality and his devotion or obedience to that dictates his conduct. 29-6-1935 *
It would be dangerous to take every "inner prompting" as if it were a prompting or initiation of action from the Mother. What seems an inner prompting may come from anywhere, any force good or bad seeking to fulfil itself.
One may have ego about the work even if the work itself comes from the Mother. The ego of the instrument is one of the things against which there must be special care in the Yoga.
When one is doing the work, usually the urge of the force hat works and the preoccupation of doing it and getting it done or the pleasure of doing it are sufficient and the mind does not think of anything else. Afterwards the sense of "I did it" comes up. With some, however, the ego is active during the work itself. 3-11-1935 *
Q: If I work for the Mother alone, the interference of the ego would mean that it comes from outside. For I can't do work only for the Mother along with my ego. A: Of course it is a way. But one has still to be careful about the ego. Even people who sincerely think that they are doing only the Mother's will are yet actuated by ego without knowing it. 4-4-1936
Page - 212 PROFIT FROM DIFFICULTIES IN WORK
I am glad of your resolution. The greater the difficulties that rise in the work the more one can profit by them in deepening the equality, if one takes it in the right spirit. You must also keep yourself open to receive the help towards that, for the help will always be coming from the Mother for the change of the nature. 29-9-1935 *
Do not allow yourself to be grieved or discouraged. Human beings have unfortunately the habit of being unkind to each other. But if you do your work in all sincerity, the Mother will be satisfied and all the rest will come afterwards.
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You need not mind X's quick temper. Remind yourself always it is Mother's work you are doing and if you do it as well as you can remembering her, the Mother's Grace will be with you. That is the right spirit for the worker, and if you do it in that spirit, a calm consecration will come. 1-3-1933 ACTION FROM INNER COMMUNION WITH THE MOTHER
You must gather yourself within more firmly. If you disperse yourself constantly, go out of the inner circle, you will constantly move about in the pettinesses of the ordinary outer nature and under the influences to which it is open. Learn to live within, to act always from within, from a constant communion with the Mother. It may be difficult at first to do it always and completely, but it can be done if one sticks to it — and it is at that price, by learning to do that, that one can have the Siddhi in the Yoga. 5-6-1934
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Page - 213 When things become confused outside, you must fix on your mind at once the rule of not judging by appearances — refer all to the Mother's Light within with the confidence that all will be clear.
The Mother says that if at any time you feel too much strain of work, you must tell her at once so that she may see what to do. 16-9-1933
OPENNESS TO THE MOTHER'S FORCE IN WORK AND NEED OF REST
In the ordinary condition of the body if you oblige the body to do too much work, it can do with the support of vital force. But as soon as the work is done, the vital force withdraws and then the body feels fatigue. If this is done too much and for too long a time, there may be a breakdown of health and strength under the overstrain. Rest is then needed for recovery.
If, however, the mind and the vital get the habit of opening to the Mother's Force, they are then supported by the Force and may even be fully filled with it — the Force does the work and the body feels no strain or fatigue before or after. But even then, unless the body itself is open and can absorb and keep the Force, sufficient rest in between the work is absolutely necessary. Otherwise, although the body may go on for a very long time, yet in the end there can be a danger of a collapse.
The body can be sustained for a long time when there is the full influence and there is a single-minded faith and call in the mind and the vital; but if the mind or the vital is disturbed by other influences or opens itself to forces which are not the Mother's then there will be a mixed condition and there will be sometimes strength, sometimes fatigue, exhaustion or illness or a mixture of the two at the same time.
Finally, if not only the mind and the vital, but the body also is open and can absorb the Force, it can do extraordinary things in the way of work without breaking down. Still even then rest is necessary. That is why we insist on those who have the impulse of work keeping a proper balance between rest and labour.
Page - 214 A complete freedom from fatigue is possible, but that comes only when there is a complete transformation of the law of the body by the full descent of a supramental Force into the earth-nature.
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This is the thing that used to happen daily to the physical workers in the Ashram. Working with immense energy and enthusiasm, with a passion for the work they might after a time feel tired, then they would call the Mother and a sense of rest came into them and with or after it a flood of energy so that twice the amount of work could be done without the least fatigue or reaction. In many there was a spontaneous call of the vital for the Force, so that they felt the flood of energy as soon as they began the work and it continued so long as the work had to be done. 26-3-1936
VITAL ENERGY IN WORK
Don't be afraid of vital energy in work. Vital energy is an invaluable gift of God without which nothing can be done — as the Mother has always insisted from the beginning; it is given that His work may be done. I am very glad that it has come back, the cheerfulness and optimism with it. That is as it should be. Page - 215 |