“This is the first thing necessary – aspiration for the Divine.”

Questions and Answers 1929 (7 April)

 The first movement of aspiration is this: you have a kind of vague sensation that behind the universe there is something which is worth knowing, which is probably (for you do not yet know it) the only thing worth living for, which can connect you with the Truth; something on which the universe depends but which does not depend upon the universe, something which still escapes your comprehension but which seems to you to be behind all things...I have said here much more than the majority of people feel about the thing, but this is the beginning of the first aspiration – to know that, not to live in this perpetual falsehood where things are so perverted and artificial, this would be something pleasant; to find something that is worth living for.

         “The next thing you have to do is to tend this aspiration, to keep it always alert and awake and living.”

Ibid.

 Instead of telling yourself once in a while, “Oh, yes! I am thinking of finding the Divine”, just when there is something unpleasant, when you are a little disgusted because you feel tired – indeed, there are very many flimsy reasons – all of a sudden you remember that there is such a thing as yoga, something like the Divine to know who can get you out of this flatness of life. “And for that what is required is concentration concentration – concentration upon the Divine with a view to an integral and absolute consecration to its Will and Purpose.”

Questions and Answers 1929 (7 April)

 This is the second step. That is to say, you begin wanting to find and know the Divine and live it. You must feel at the same time that the thing is so precious, so important that your entire life is not sufficient for acquiring it. Then, the first movement is a self-giving; you tell yourself, “I do not want any longer to belong to myself, for the sake of my little personal satisfaction, I wish to belong to this marvellous thing which one must find, must know, must live and for which I aspire.”

“Concentrate in the heart. Enter into it; go within and deep and far, as far as you can. Gather all the strings of your consciousness that are spread abroad, roll them up and take a plunge and sink down.”

Ibid.

Naturally, when I speak of the heart, I do not mean the physical organ, the viscera, but the psychological or psychic centre of the being.

 To be continued.