Duty towards the Divine and Others

 

Duty towards the Divine is far more sacred than any social or family duty; it is all the more sacred because within the human collectivity it is almost wholly ignored or misunderstood.

 

One who has given himself to the Divine has no longer any other duty than to make that consecration more and more perfect. The world and those who live in it have always wanted to put human − social and family − duty before duty to the Divine, which they have stigmatised as egoism. How indeed could they judge otherwise, they who have no experience of the reality of the Divine? But for the divine regard their opinion has no value, their will has no force. These are movements of ignorance, nothing more. You should not attempt to convince; above all, you should not let yourself be touched or shaken. You must shut yourself carefully within your ivory tower of consecration and await from the Divine alone help, protection, guidance and approbation. To be condemned by the whole world is nothing to him who knows that he has the approval of the Divine and his support.

Besides, has not mankind proved its utter incompetence in the organisation of its own existence? Governments succeed governments, regimes follow regimes, centuries pass after centuries, but human misery remains lamentably the same. It will always be so, as long as man remains what he is, blind and ignorant, closed to all spiritual reality. A transformation, an illumination of the human consciousness alone can bring about a real amelioration in the condition of humanity. Thus even from the standpoint of human life, it follows logically that the first duty of man is to seek and possess the divine consciousness.

 13 June 1937  

Page − 306

“We would be completely under Thy influence to the exclusion of every other.” ¹

 

Each force or power has an influence on other forces and powers and this reaction is reciprocal. To escape this constant and general confusion or influence, there is only one way, to concentrate exclusively on the Divine Consciousness and to open oneself only to the Divine Consciousness.

 

There can be no true integral surrender to the Divine if any human relations and their habits and attachments are still maintained. All relations must be turned upward and directed to the Divine alone and transformed into means for the union and surrender.

 

Vital relations are always dangerous.

A complete, absolute consecration of the vital to the Divine is the only solution.

 

You preferred human friendship to divine friendship, but human friendship is unsteady and now you feel cut off from both. Not that the Divine has withdrawn his friendship from you − never does he withdraw it − but you have got into a state of vital incapacity for enjoying it.

 

 ¹Prayers and Meditations, Cent. Vol. 1, p. 377. 

Page − 307

What should we do to remain always in contact with the Divine, so that no person or event can draw us away from this contact?

 

Aspiration. Sincerity.

1972

Page − 308

General  

 

Never keep company with those who follow muddy tracks for it is your own companions who will smirch you.

 

            I had to face a very violent person. It had a reaction upon me.

 

Cut connection, suddenly if possible, to let the vibrations fall down.

 

By his way of thinking, feeling, acting, each one emanates vibrations which constitute his own atmosphere and quite naturally attract vibrations of similar nature and quality.

 

There is no better way to become friends than to laugh together.

 

Our best friend is he who loves us in the best of ourselves and yet does not ask us to be other than we are. 

Page − 309

Men and Women  

SLAVERY 

No law can liberate women unless they liberate themselves.

What makes them slaves is:

(1) Attraction towards the male and his strength,

(2) Desire for home life and its security,

(3) Attachment to motherhood.

If they get free from these three slaveries, they will truly be the equal of men.

Men also have three slaveries:

(1) Spirit of possession, attachment to power and domination,

(2) Desire for sexual relation with women,

(3) Attachment to the small comforts of married life.

If they get rid of these three slaveries, they can truly become the equal of women.

 1 August 1951

Women are not more bound to the vital and material consciousness than men are. On the contrary, as they have not, in general, the arrogant mental pretensions of men, it is easier for them to discover their psychic being and to allow it to guide them.

In general, they are not conscious in a mental way which can be expressed in words, but they are conscious in their feelings and the best of them are so even in their actions.

 

There have been many outstanding feminine figures in spiritual life. But on one side women are more interested by action  

Page − 310

than by mentalisation and intellectual expression, that is why very few women have recorded their spiritual experience and thus they have remained unknown.

 

To be truly a good wife is almost as difficult as to be a true disciple.

 

The idea that women should cook for males is against my principles. Are they slaves? 

Page − 311