{"id":1127,"date":"2013-07-13T01:32:46","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1127"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:32:46","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:46","slug":"05-basic-requisites-of-the-path-vol-23-letters-on-yoga-volume-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/23-letters-on-yoga-volume-23\/05-basic-requisites-of-the-path-vol-23-letters-on-yoga-volume-23","title":{"rendered":"-05_Basic Requisites of the Path.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\nS<\/span>ECTION <\/font>T<\/span>HREE<\/font><\/b> <\/font><\/p>\n


\nBasic Requisites of the Path<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n       
\n<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

       
\n<\/font><\/b>T<\/font><\/b>HE<\/font>
\ngoal of yoga is always hard to reach, but this one is more difficult than any
\nother, and it is only for those who have the call, the capacity, the willingness
\nto face everything and every risk, even the risk of failure, and the will to
\nprogress towards an entire selflessness, desirelessness and surrender.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This yoga
\nimplies not only the realisation of God, but an entire consecration and change
\nof the inner and outer life till it is fit to manifest a divine consciousness
\nand become part of a divine work. This means an inner discipline far more
\nexacting and difficult than mere ethical and physical austerities. One must not
\nenter on this path, far vaster and more arduous than most ways of yoga, unless
\none is sure of the psychic call and of one’s readiness to go through to the
\nend.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By readiness,
\nI did not mean capacity but willingness. If there is the will within to face
\nall difficulties and go through, no matter how long it takes, then the path can
\nbe taken.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A mere
\nrestless dissatisfaction with the ordinary life is not a sufficient preparation
\nfor this yoga. A positive inner call, a strong will and a great steadiness are
\nnecessary for success in the spiritual life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mental
\ntheories are of no fundamental importance, for the mind forms or accepts the
\ntheories that support the turn of the being. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 545<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

What is
\nimportant is that turn and the call within you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The knowledge that there is a Supreme Existence, Consciousness and Bliss
\nwhich is not merely a negative Nirvana or a static and featureless Absolute,
\nbut dynamic, the perception that this Divine Consciousness can be realised not
\nonly beyond but here, and the consequent acceptance of a divine life as the aim
\nof yoga, do not belong to the mind. It is not a question of mental theory \u2013
\neven though mentally this outlook can be as well supported as any other, if not
\nbetter, \u2013 but of experience\u00a0 <\/span>and, before
\nthe experience comes, of the soul’s faith bringing with it the mind’s and the
\nlife’s adhesion. One who is in contact with the higher Light and has the
\nexperience can follow this way, however difficult it may be for the lower
\nmembers to follow; one who is touched by it, without having the experience, but
\nhaving the call, the conviction, the compulsion of the soul’s adherence, can
\nalso follow it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

An idealistic
\nnotion or religious belief or emotion is something quite different from getting
\nspiritual light. An idealistic notion might turn you towards getting spiritual
\nlight, but it is not the light itself. It is true however that \u201cthe spirit
\nbloweth where it listeth\u201d and that we can get an emotional impulse or touch or
\nmental realisation of spiritual things from almost any circumstance, as
\nBilwamangal got it from the words of his courtesan mistress. Obviously, it
\nhappens because something is ready somewhere, \u2013 if you like, the psychic being
\nwaiting for its chance and taking some opportunity in mind, vital or heart to
\nknock open a window somewhere.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mere idealism
\ncan only have an effect if one has a strong will in the mind capable of forcing
\nthe vital to follow.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The push to
\ndrown oneself in the Divine is very rare. It is usually <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 546<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

a mental
\nidea, a vital urge or some quite inadequate reason that starts the thing \u2013 or
\nelse no reason at all. The only reality is the occult psychic push behind of
\nwhich the surface consciousness is not aware or else hardly aware.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What you
\nwrite is quite accurate about the true soul, the psychic being. But people mean
\ndifferent things when they speak of the soul. Sometimes it is what I have
\ncalled in the Arya the desire-soul, \u2013 that is the vital with its mixed
\naspirations, desires, hungers of all kinds good and bad, its emotions, finer
\nand grosser, or sensational urges crossed by the mind’s idealisings and psychic
\nstresses. But sometimes it is also the mind and vital under the stress of a
\npsychic urge. The psychic, so long as it is veiled, must express itself through
\nthe mind and vital and its aspirations are mixed and coloured there by the
\nvital and mental stuff. Thus the veiled psychic urge may express itself in the
\nmind by a hunger in the thought for the knowledge of the Divine, what the
\nEuropeans call the intellectual love of God. In the vital it may express itself
\nas a hunger or hankering after the Divine. It can bring much suffering because
\nof the nature of the vital, its unquiet passions, desires, ardours, troubled
\nemotions, cloudings, depressions, despairs. Nevertheless all cannot approach,
\nat least cannot at once approach the Divine in the pure psychic way \u2013 the
\nmental and vital approaches are often necessary beginnings and better from the
\nspiritual point of view than unsensitiveness to the Divine. It is in both cases
\na call of the soul, the soul’s urge \u2013 it only takes a form or colour due to the
\nstress of the mind or vital nature.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is very
\nevident that X has had a sudden opening to spiritual experience \u2013 a surprisingly
\nsudden opening, one would think, but it happens often in that way, especially
\nif there is a sceptical mind outside and a soul ready for experience within. In
\nsuch cases also it comes often after a blow such as his brother’s illness, <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 547<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

but I think
\nthere was already a turning of the mind which prepared it. This sudden and
\npersistent visualisation also shows that there is a faculty within that has
\nbroken the gates which shut it in \u2013 t he faculty of supraphysical vision. The
\ncoming up of the word \u201cconsecration\u201d is also a familiar phenomenon of these
\nexperiences \u2013 it is what I call the voice of the psychic, an intimation from
\nhis own soul to the mind as to what it wants him to do. Now he has to accept
\nit, for the assent of the nature, of the outward man to the inner voice, is
\nnecessary so that it may be effective. He is standing at the turning-point and
\nhas been given an indication of the new road his inner being, the Antaratman,
\nwants him to follow \u2013 but, as I say, the assent of his mind and vital is
\nnecessary. If he can decide to consecrate, he must make the sankalpa<\/i> of consecration, offer himself
\nto the Divine and call for the help and the guidance. If he is not able to do
\nthat at once, let him wait and see, but keeping himself open, as it were, to
\nthe continuation and development of the experience that has begun, till it
\nbecomes definitely imperative to his own feeling. He will receive help and, if
\nhe becomes conscious of it, then there can be no further question \u2013 it will be
\neasy for him to proceed on the way.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Your
\ninfluence on him for turning towards the yoga was good, but it was not able to
\nchange his vital nature. No human influence \u2013 which can only be mental and
\nmoral \u2013 can do that; you can see that he is just what he was before. It can be
\ndone only from his own soul turning towards the Divine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Knowledge of
\nthe way is not enough \u2013 one must tread it, or if one cannot do that, allow
\noneself to be carried along it. The human vital and physical external nature
\nresist to the very end, but if the soul has once heard the call, it arrives,
\nsooner or later. <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 548<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

For those who
\nhave within them a sincere call for the Divine, however the mind or vital may
\npresent difficulties or attacks come or the progress be slow and painful, \u2013
\neven if they fall back or fall away from the path for a time, the psychic
\nalways prevails in the end and the Divine Help proves effective. Trust in that
\nand persevere \u2013 then the goal is sure.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have
\nalready answered your question. You came because your soul was moved to seek
\nthe Divine. That some part of your vital has strong attachments to the people
\nyou left behind, is a fact, but it does not make your soul’s seeking unreal. If
\nthe presence and persistence of vital difficulties were to prove that a sadhak
\nis unfit and has no chance, then only one or two in the Ashram \u2013 and perhaps
\nnot even they \u2013 would survive the test. The feeling of dryness and not being
\nable to aspire is also no proof. Every sadhak gets periods and even long
\nperiods of such emptiness. I could point to some who are considered among the
\nmost \u201cadvanced\u201d sadhaks and yet are not free yet altogether from the family
\ninstinct. It is therefore quite unreasonable to be upset because these reactions
\nstill linger in you. These reactions come and go, but the need of the soul is
\npermanent, even when covered up and silent, and will always stay and re-emerge.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All who came
\nhere did not come with a conscious seeking for the Divine. It is without the
\nmind knowing it the soul within that brought them here. In your case it was
\nthat and the relation your soul had with the Mother. Once here the force of the
\nDivine works upon the human nature till a way is opened for the soul within to
\ncome out from the veil. The conscious seeking for the Divine does not by itself
\nprevent the struggle with the ignorance of the nature; it is only self-giving
\nto the Mother that can do that. <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 549<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

When someone
\nis destined for the Path, all circumstances through all the deviations of mind
\nand life help in one way or another to lead him to it. It is his own psychic
\nbeing within him and Divine Power above that use to that end the vicissitudes
\nboth of mind and outward circumstance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When the soul
\nis meant to go forward and there is an external weakness like that,
\ncircumstances do come like that to help the external being against itself \u2013
\nwhich means that there must be a truly sincere aspiration behind; otherwise it
\ndoes not happen.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The spiritual
\ndestiny always stands \u2013 it may be delayed or seem to be lost for a time, but it
\nis never abolished.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A spiritual
\nopportunity is not a thing that should be lightly thrown away with the idea
\nthat it will be all right some other time \u2013 one cannot be so sure of the other
\ntime. Besides, these things leave a mark and at the place of the mark there can
\nbe a recurrence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The vision of
\nthe Light and the vision of the Lord in the form of Jagannath are both of them indications
\nthat he has the capacity for yoga and that there is a call of the Divine on his
\ninner being. But capacity is not enough; there must be also the will to seek
\nafter the Divine and courage and persistence in following the path. Fear is the
\nfirst thing that must be thrown away and, secondly, the inertia of the outer
\nbeing which has prevented him from responding to the call. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Light is the light of the Divine Consciousness. The aim of this yoga
\nis first to come into contact with this consciousness and then to live in its
\nlight and allow the light to transform the <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 550<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

whole nature,
\nso that the being may live in union with the Divine and the nature become a
\nfield for the action of the divine Knowledge, the divine Power and the divine
\nAnanda. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He can succeed in this only if he makes it the supreme object of his life
\nand is prepared to subordinate everything else to this one aim. Otherwise all
\nthat can be done is only to make some preparation in this life \u2013 a first
\ncontact and some preliminary spiritual change in part of the nature.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All can do
\nsome kind of yoga according to their nature, if they have the will to it. But
\nthere are few of whom it can be said that they have capacity for this yoga.
\nOnly some can develop a capacity, others cannot.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nobody is fit
\nfor the sadhana \u2013 i.e. nobody can do it by his own sole capacity. It is a
\nquestion of preparing oneself to bring in fully the Force not one’s own that
\ncan do it with one’s consent and aspiration.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is
\ndifficult to say that any particular quality makes one fit or the lack of it
\nunfit. One may have strong sex-impulses, doubts, revolts and yet succeed in the
\nend, while another may fail. If one has a fundamental sincerity, a will to go
\nthrough in spite of all things and readiness to be candid, that is the best
\nsecurity in the sadhana.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When one
\nenters into the true (yogic) consciousness then you see that everything can be
\ndone, even if at present only a slight beginning has been made; but a beginning
\nis enough, since the Force, the Power are there. It is not really on the
\ncapacity of the outer nature that success depends, (for the outer nature all
\nself-exceeding seems impossibly difficult,) but on the inner being and to the
\ninner being all is possible. One has only to get into contact with
\n <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 551<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

the inner
\nbeing and change the outer view and consciousness from the inner; that is the
\nwork of the sadhana and it is sure to come with sincerity, aspiration and
\npatience.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You must
\nrealise that these moods are attacks which should be rejected at once \u2013 for
\nthey repose on nothing but suggestions of self-distrust and incapacity which
\nhave no meaning, since it is by the Grace of the Divine and the aid of a Force
\ngreater than your own, not by personal capacity and worth that you can attain
\nthe goal of the sadhana. You have to remember that and dissociate yourself from
\nthese suggestions when they come, never accept or yield to them. No sadhak even
\nif he had the capacity of the ancient Rishis and Tapaswis or the strength of a
\nVivekananda can hope to keep during the early years of his sadhana a continuous
\ngood condition or union with the Divine or an unbroken call or height of
\naspiration. It takes a long time to spiritualise the whole nature and until
\nthat is done, variations must come. A constant trust and patience must be
\ncultivated \u2013 must be acquired \u2013 not least when things go against \u2013 for when
\nthey are favourable, trust and patience are easy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It goes
\nwithout saying that the qualities you speak of are helpful in the approach to
\nthe spiritual path, while the defects you enumerate are each a serious
\nstumbling-block in the way. Sincerity especially is indispensable to the
\nspiritual endeavour, and crookedness a constant obstacle. The sattwic nature has
\nalways been held to be the most apt and ready for the spiritual life, while the
\nrajasic nature is encumbered by its desires and passions. At the same time,
\nspirituality is something above the dualities, and what is most needed for it
\nis a true upward aspiration. This may come to the rajasic man as well as to the
\nsattwic. If it does, he can rise by it above his failings and desires and
\npassions, just as the other can rise beyond his virtues, to the Divine Purity
\nand Light and Love. Necessarily, this can only <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 552<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

happen if he
\nconquers his lower nature and throws it from him; for if he relapses into it,
\nhe is likely to fall from the path or at least to be, so long as the relapse
\nlasts, held back by it from inner progress. But for all that the conversion of
\ngreat sinners into great saints, of men of little or no virtue into spiritual
\nseekers and God-lovers has frequently happened in religious and spiritual
\nhistory \u2013 as in Europe St. Augustine, in India Chaitanya’s Jagai and Madhai,
\nBilwamangal and many others. The house of the Divine is not closed to any who
\nknock sincerely at its gates, whatever their past stumbles and errors. Human
\nvirtues and human errors are bright and dark wrappings of a divine element
\nwithin which once it pierces the veil, can burn through both towards the
\nheights of the Spirit.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Humility before the Divine is also a sine qua non of the spiritual life,
\nand spiritual pride, arrogance, or vanity and self-assurance press always
\ndownward. But confidence in the Divine and a faith in one’s spiritual destiny
\n(i.e. since my heart and soul seek for the Divine, I cannot fail one day to
\nreach Him) are much needed in view of the difficulties of the Path. A contempt
\nfor others is out of place, especially since the Divine is in all. Evidently, the
\nactivities and aspirations of men are not trivial and worthless, for all life
\nis a growth of the soul out of the darkness towards the Light. But our attitude
\nis that humanity cannot grow out of its limitations by the ordinary means
\nadopted by the human mind, politics, social reform, philanthropy, etc. \u2013 these
\ncan only be temporary or local palliatives. The only true escape is a change of
\nconsciousness, a change into a greater, wider and purer way of being, and a
\nlife and action based upon that change. It is therefore to that that the
\nenergies must be turned, once the spiritual orientation is complete. This
\nimplies no contempt, but the preference of the only effective means over those
\nwhich have been found ineffective.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It can be put
\nlike that; but virtuous and sinners is a wrong description; for it is not true
\nthat virtuous people suffer more than sinners. Many sinners are people who are
\npreparing to turn
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 553<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

to the Divine
\nand many virtuous people have a long run of lives yet to go through before they
\nwill think of it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Such
\nqualities as faith, sincerity, aspiration, devotion, etc. make up the
\nperfection indicated in our language of the flowers. In ordinary language it
\nwould mean something else such as purity, love, benevolence, fidelity and a
\nhost of other virtues.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Get the
\npsychic being in front and keep it there, putting its power on the mind, vital
\nand physical, so that it shall communicate to them its force of single-minded
\naspiration, trust, faith, surrender, direct and immediate detection of whatever
\nis wrong in the nature and turned towards ego and error, away from Light and
\nTruth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Eliminate egoism in all its forms; eliminate it from every movement of
\nyour consciousness.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Develop the cosmic consciousness \u2013 let the ego-centric outlook disappear
\nin wideness, impersonality, the sense of the Cosmic Divine, the perception of
\nuniversal forces, the realisation and understanding of the cosmic
\nmanifestation, the play. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Find in place of ego the true being \u2013 a portion of the Divine, issued
\nfrom the World-Mother and an instrument of the manifestation. This sense of
\nbeing a portion of the Divine and an instrument should be free from all pride,
\nsense or claim of ego or assertion of superiority, demand or desire. For if
\nthese elements are there, then it is not the true thing. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Most in doing yoga live in the mind, vital, physical, lit up occasionally
\nor to some extent by the higher mind and by the illumined mind; but to prepare
\nfor the supramental change it is necessary (as soon as, personally, the time
\nhas come) to open up to the Intuition and the overmind, so that these may make
\nthe whole being and the whole nature ready for the supramental change. Allow
\nthe consciousness quietly to develop and widen and the knowledge of these
\nthings will progressively come. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 554<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Calm,
\ndiscrimination, detachment (but not indifference) are all very important, for
\ntheir opposites impede very much the transforming action. Intensity of aspiration
\nshould be there, but it must go along with these. No hurry, no inertia, neither
\nrajasic over-eagerness nor tamasic discouragement \u2013 a steady and persistent but
\nquiet call and working. No snatching or clutching at realisation, but allowing
\nrealisation to come from within and above and observing accurately its field,
\nits nature, its limits.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Let the power of the Mother work in you, but be careful to avoid any
\nmixture or substitution, in its place, of either a magnified ego-working or a
\nforce of Ignorance presenting itself as Truth. Aspire especially for the
\nelimination of all obscurity and unconsciousness in the nature. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

These are the main conditions of preparation for the supramental change;
\nbut none of them is easy, and they must be complete before the nature can be
\nsaid to be ready. If the true attitude (psychic, unegoistic, open only to the
\nDivine Force) can be established, then the process can go on much more quickly.
\nTo take and keep the true attitude, to further the change in oneself, is the help
\nthat can be given, the one thing asked to assist the general change.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The best way
\nto answer your letter will be, I think, to take separately the questions
\nimplied in it. I will begin with the conclusion you have drawn of the
\nimpossibility of the yoga for a non-oriental nature.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I cannot see any ground for such a conclusion; it is contrary to all
\nexperience. Europeans throughout the centuries have practised with success
\nspiritual disciplines which were akin to oriental yoga and have followed, too,
\nways of the inner life which came to them from the East. Their non-oriental
\nnature did not stand in their way. The approach and experiences of Plotinus and
\nthe European mystics who derived from him were identical, as has been shown
\nrecently, with the approach and experiences of one type of Indian yoga.
\nEspecially, since the introduction of Christianity, Europeans have followed its
\nmystic disciplines which were one in essence with those of Asia,
\nhowever much <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 555<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

they may have
\ndiffered in forms, names and symbols. If the question be of Indian yoga itself
\nin its own characteristic forms, here too the supposed inability is
\ncontradicted by experience. In early times Greeks and Scythians from the West
\nas well as Chinese and Japanese and Cambodians from the East followed without
\ndifficulty Buddhist or Hindu disciplines; at the present day an increasing
\nnumber of occidentals have taken to Vedantic or Vaishnava or other Indian
\nspiritual practices and this objection of incapacity or unsuitableness has never
\nbeen made either from the side of the disciples or from the side of the
\nMasters. I do not see, either, why there should be any such unbridgeable gulf;
\nfor there is no essential difference between the spiritual life in the East and
\nthe spiritual life in the West; what difference there is has always been of
\nnames, forms and symbols or else of the emphasis laid on one special aim or
\nanother or on one side or another of psychological experience. Even here
\ndifferences are often alleged which do not exist or else are not so great as
\nthey appear. I have seen it alleged by a Christian writer (who does not seem to
\nhave shared your friend Angus’ objection to these scholastic small
\ndistinctions) that Hindu spiritual thought and life acknowledged or followed
\nafter only the Transcendent and neglected the Immanent Divinity, while
\nChristianity gave due place to both Aspects; but in point of fact, Indian
\nspirituality, even if it laid the final stress on the Highest beyond form and
\nname, yet gave ample recognition and place to the Divine immanent in the world
\nand the Divine immanent in the human being. Indian spirituality has, it is
\ntrue, a wider and more minute knowledge behind it; it has followed hundreds of
\ndifferent paths, admitted every kind of approach to the Divine and has thus
\nbeen able to enter into fields which are outside the less ample scope of
\noccidental practice; but that makes no difference to the essentials, and it is
\nthe essentials alone that matter. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Your explanation of the ability of many Westerners to practise Indian
\nyoga seems to be that they have a Hindu temperament in a European or American
\nbody. As Gandhi is inwardly a moralistic Westerner and Christian, you say, so
\nthe other non-oriental members of the Ashram are essentially Hindus in outlook.
\nBut what exactly is this Hindu outlook? I have not myself <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 556<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

seen anything
\nin them that can be so described nor has the Mother. My own experience
\ncontradicts entirely your explanation. I knew very well Sister Nivedita (she
\nwas for many years a friend and a comrade in the political field) and met
\nSister Christine,\u2014the two closest European disciples of Vivekananda. Both were
\nWesterners to the core and had nothing at all of the Hindu outlook; although
\nSister Nivedita, an Irish woman, had the power of penetrating by an intense
\nsympathy into the ways of life of the people around her, her own nature
\nremained non-oriental to the end. Yet she found no difficulty in arriving at
\nrealisation on the lines of Vedanta. Here in this Ashram I have found the
\nmembers of it who came from the West (I include especially those who have been
\nhere longest) typically occidental with all the quality and also all the
\ndifficulties of the Western mind and temperament and they have had to cope with
\ntheir difficulties, just as the Indian members have been obliged to struggle
\nwith the limitations and obstacles created by their temperament and training.
\nNo doubt, they have accepted in principle the conditions of the yoga, but they
\nhad no Hindu outlook when they came and I do not think they have tried to
\nacquire one. Why should they do so? It is not the Hindu outlook or the Western
\nthat fundamentally matters in yoga, but the psychic turn and the spiritual
\nurge, and these are the same everywhere. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What are the differences after all from the viewpoint of yoga between the
\nsadhak of Indian and the sadhak of occidental birth? You say the Indian has his
\nyoga half done for him, \u2013 first, because he has his psychic much more directly
\nopen to the Transcendent Divine. Leaving out the adjective, (for it is not many
\nwho are by nature drawn to the Transcendent, most seek more readily the
\nPersonal, the Divine immanent here, especially if they can find it in a human
\nbody,) there is there no doubt an advantage. It arises simply from the strong
\nsurvival in India of an atmosphere of spiritual seeking and a long tradition of
\npractice and experience, while in Europe the atmosphere has been lost, the
\ntradition interrupted, and both have to be rebuilt. There is an absence too of
\nthe essential doubt which so much afflicts the minds of Europeans or, it may be
\nadded, Europeanised Indians, although that does not prevent a great activity of
\na practical and <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 557<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

very
\noperative kind of doubt in the Indian sadhak. But when you speak of
\nindifference to fellow human beings in any deeper aspect, I am unable to follow
\nyour meaning. My own experience is that the attachment to persons \u2013 to mother,
\nfather, wife, children, friends \u2013 not out of sense of duty or social
\nrelationship, but through close heart-ties is quite as strong as in Europe and
\noften more intense; it is one of the great disturbing forces in the way, some
\nsuccumbing to the pull and many, even advanced sadhaks, being still unable to
\nget it out of their blood and their vital fibre. The impulse to set up a
\n\u201cspiritual\u201d or a \u201cpsychic\u201d relationship with others \u2013 very usually covering a
\nvital mixture which distracts them from the one aim \u2013 is a persistently common
\nfeature. There is no difference here between the Western and Eastern human
\nnature. Only the teaching in India is of long standing that all must be turned
\ntowards the Divine and everything else either sacrificed or changed into a
\nsubordinate and ancillary movement or made by sublimation a first step only
\ntowards the seeking for the Divine. This no doubt helps the Indian sadhak if
\nnot to become single-hearted at once, yet to orientate himself more completely
\ntowards the goal. It is not always for him the Divine alone, though that
\nis\u00a0 <\/span>considered the highest state; but the
\nDivine, chief and first, is easily grasped by him as the ideal. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Indian sadhak has his own difficulties in his approach to the yoga \u2013
\nat least to this yoga \u2013 which a Westerner has in less measure. Those of the
\noccidental nature are born of the dominant trend of the European mind in the
\nimmediate past. A greater readiness of essential<\/i>
\ndoubt and sceptical reserve; a habit of mental activity as a necessity of the
\nnature which makes it more difficult to achieve a complete mental silence; a
\nstronger turn towards outside things born of the plenitude of active life
\n(while the Indian commonly suffers from defects born rather of a depressed or
\nsuppressed vital force); a habit of mental and vital self-assertion and
\nsometimes an aggressively vigilant independence which renders difficult any
\ncompleteness of internal surrender even to a greater Light and Knowledge, even
\nto the divine Influence \u2013 these are frequent obstacles. But these things are
\nnot universal in Westerners, and they are, on the other hand, <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 558<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

present in
\nmany Indian sadhaks; they are, like the difficulties of the typical Indian
\nnature, superstructural formations, not the very grain of the being. They
\ncannot permanently stand in the way of the soul, if the soul’s aspiration is
\nstrong and firm, if the spiritual aim is the chief thing in the life. They are
\nimpediments which the fire within can easily burn away if the will to get rid
\nof them is strong, and which it will surely burn away in the end, \u2013 though less
\neasily, \u2013 even if the outer nature clings long to them and justifies them \u2013
\nprovided that the fire, the central will, the deeper impulse is behind all,
\nreal and sincere. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This conclusion of yours about the incapacity of the non-oriental for
\nIndian yoga is simply born of a too despondently acute sense of your own
\ndifficulties; you have not seen those equally great that have long troubled or
\nare still troubling others. Neither to Indian nor to European can the path of
\nyoga be smooth and easy; their common human nature is there to see to that. To
\neach his own difficulties seem enormous and radical and even incurable by their
\ncontinuity and persistence and induce long periods of despondency and crises of
\ndespair. To have faith enough or enough psychic sight to react at once or
\nalmost at once and prevent these attacks is given hardly to two or three in a
\nhundred. But one ought not to settle down into a fixed idea of one’s own
\nincapacity or allow it to become an obsession; for such an attitude has no true
\njustification and unnecessarily renders the way harder. Where there is a soul
\nthat has once become awake, there is surely a capacity within that can outweigh
\nall surface defects and can in the end conquer. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If your conclusion were true, the whole aim of this yoga would be a vain
\nthing; for we are not working for a race or a people or a continent or for a
\nrealisation of which only Indians or only orientals are capable. Our aim is
\nnot, either, to found a religion or a school of philosophy or a school of yoga,
\nbut to create a ground of spiritual growth and experience and a way which will
\nbring down a greater Truth beyond the mind but not inaccessible to the human
\nsoul and consciousness. All can pass who are drawn to that Truth, whether they
\nare from India or elsewhere, from the East or from the West. All may find great
\ndifficulties in their personal or common human nature; but it is <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 559<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

not their
\nphysical origin or their racial temperament that can be an insuperable obstacle
\nto their deliverance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nII<\/b><\/p>\n

  <\/p>\n

There is one indispensable
\ncondition, sincerity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sincere is
\nsimply an adjective meaning that the will must be a true will. If you simply
\nthink \u201cI aspire\u201d and do things inconsistent with the aspiration, or follow your
\ndesires or open yourself to contrary influences, then it is not a sincere will.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is true
\nthat a central sincerity is not enough except as a beginning and a base; the
\nsincerity must spread as you describe through the whole nature. But still
\nunless there is a double nature (without a central harmonising consciousness),
\nthe basis is usually sufficient for that to happen.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When all is
\nin agreement with the one Truth or an expression of it, that is harmony.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sincerity in
\nthe vital is the most difficult to have and the most needful.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You speak of
\ninsincerity in your nature. If insincerity means the unwillingness of some part
\nof the being to live according to the highest light one has or to equate the
\nouter with the inner man, then this part is always insincere in all. The only
\nway is to lay <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 560<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

stress on the
\ninner being and develop in it the psychic and spiritual consciousness till that
\ncomes down in it which pushes out the darkness from the outer man also. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have never said that the vital is to have no part in the love for the
\nDivine, only that it must purify and ennoble itself in the light of the psychic
\nbeing. The results of self-loving love between human beings are so poor and
\ncontrary in the end \u2013 that is what I mean by the ordinary vital love \u2013 that I
\nwant something purer and nobler and higher in the vital also for the movement
\ntowards the Divine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Men are
\nalways mixed and there are qualities and defects mingled together almost
\ninextricably in their nature. What a man wants to be or wants others to see in
\nhim or what he is sometimes on one side of his nature or in some relations can
\nbe very different from what he is in the actual fact or in other relations or
\non another side of his nature. To be absolutely sincere, straightforward, open,
\nis not an easy achievement for human nature. It is only by spiritual endeavour
\nthat one can realise it \u2013 and to do it needs a severity of introspective
\nself-vision, an unsparing scrutiny of self-observation of which many sadhaks
\nand yogis even are not capable and it is only by an illumining Grace that
\nreveals the sadhak to himself and transforms what is deficient in him that it
\ncan be done. And even then only if he himself consents and lends himself wholly
\nto the divine working.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There are
\ncertain things that it is absolutely necessary for X to realise in a sincere
\nand straightforward spirit, without self-justification if his sadhana is not to
\nturn about in a constant circle to the end or else fail and fall into pieces. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The aim of
\nthis yoga is an opening to a higher Divine Truth beyond life, mind and body and
\nthe transformation of these three things into its image. But that
\ntransformation cannot take place, and the Truth itself cannot be known in its
\nown unmistakable <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 561<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

spirit,
\nperfect light and real body until the whole of the ādhāra<\/i> has been fundamentally and patiently purified, and
\nmade plastic and capable of receiving what is beyond the constructions of the
\nmind, the desires of the vital being and the habits of the physical
\nconsciousness and physical being. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

His most obvious obstacle, one which he has not in the least got rid of
\nup to now, is a strongly rajasic vital ego for which his mind finds
\njustifications and covers. There is nothing more congenial to the vital ego
\nthan to put on the cloak of yoga, and imagine itself free, divinised,
\nspiritualised, siddha and all the rest of it, or advancing towards that end,
\nwhen it is really doing nothing of the kind, but is just its old self in new
\nforms. If one does not look at oneself with a constant sincerity, it is
\nimpossible to get out of this circle. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Along with the exclusion of self-deceiving vital ego, there must go that
\nwhich accompanies it, usually in the mental parts, mental arrogance, a false sense
\nof superiority and an ostentation of knowledge. All pretence and all
\npretensions must be given up; all pretence to oneself or others of being what
\none is not, or of knowing what one does not know, and all idea of being higher
\nthan one’s own spiritual stature. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Over against the vital ego there is a great coarseness and heaviness of
\ntamas in the physical being and an absence of psychic and spiritual refinement.
\nThat must be eliminated or it will stand always in the way of a true and
\ncomplete change in the vital being and the mind. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unless these things are radically changed, merely having experiences or
\nestablishing a temporary and precarious calmness in the mental and vital parts
\nwill not help in the end. There will be no fundamental change, only a constant
\ngoing from one state to another, sometimes a return of disturbances and always
\nthe same defect persisting to the end of the chapter. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The one
\ncondition of getting rid of things is an absolute central sincerity in all the
\nparts of the being, and that means an absolute insistence on the Truth and
\nnothing but the Truth. There will then be a readiness for unsparing
\nself-criticism and vigilant openness to the light, an uneasiness when falsehood
\ncomes in, which will finally purify the whole being.
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 562<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

The defects
\nmentioned are more or less common in various degrees in almost every sadhak,
\nthough there are some who are not touched by them. They can be got rid of, if
\nthe requisite sincerity is there. But if they occupy the central parts of the
\nbeing and vitiate the attitude, then the sadhak will give a constant open or
\ncovert support to them, his mind will always be ready to give disguises and
\njustifications and try to elude the searchlight of the self-critical faculty
\nand protests of the psychic being. That means a failure in the yoga at least
\nfor this existence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is quite
\nnatural that there should be much mixture in the attitude till all is clear \u2013
\nthe ordinary nature clings to the action and the transformation in its
\ncompleteness cannot be sudden. What is necessary is that the basic
\nconsciousness should become firmly established in the Divine, then the mixture
\nin the rest can be seen and steadily worked out. To have this outwardly as well
\nas inwardly is a great progress.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is
\ndifficult for the ordinary Christian to be of a piece, because the teachings of
\nChrist are on quite another plane from the consciousness of the intellectual
\nand vital man trained by the education and society of Europe \u2013 the latter, even
\nas a minister or priest, has never been called upon to practise what he
\npreached in entire earnest. But it is difficult for the human nature anywhere
\nto think, feel and act from one centre of true faith, belief or vision. The
\naverage Hindu considers the spiritual life the highest, reveres the Sannyasi,
\nis moved by the Bhakta; but if one of the family circle leaves the world for
\nspiritual life, what tears, arguments, remonstrances, lamentations! It is
\nalmost worse than if he had died a natural death. It is not conscious mental
\ninsincerity \u2013 they will argue like Pandits and go to Shastra to prove you in
\nthe wrong; it is unconsciousness, a vital insincerity which they are not aware
\nof and which uses the reasoning mind as an accomplice.
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 563<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

That is why
\nwe insist so much on sincerity in the yoga \u2013 and that means to have all the
\nbeing consciously turned towards the one Truth, the one Divine. But that for
\nhuman nature is one of the most difficult of tasks, much more difficult than a
\nrigid asceticism or a fervent piety. Religion itself does not give this
\ncomplete harmonised sincerity \u2013 it is only the psychic being and the one-souled
\nspiritual aspiration that can give it. <\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

III<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The
\naspiration should be for the full descent of the Truth and the victory over
\nfalsehood in the world.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Those who
\ncome here have an aspiration and a possibility \u2013 something in their psychic
\nbeing pushes and if they follow it they will arrive; but that is not conversion.
\nConversion is a turning of the being away from lower things towards the Divine.\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Aspiration
\ncan lead hereafter to conversion, but aspiration is not conversion. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mother spoke of three different things: conversion, the turning of the
\nsoul decisively towards the Divine, \u2013 inner realisation of the Divine, \u2013
\ntransformation of the nature. The first two can happen swiftly and suddenly and
\nonce for all, the third always takes time and cannot be done at one stroke, in
\na moment. One may become aware of a rapid change in this or that detail of the
\ntransformation, but even this is the rapid result of a long working.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Consecration
\nis a process by which one trains the consciousness to give itself to the
\nDivine. But conversion is a spontaneous movement of the consciousness, a
\nturning of it away from external things towards the Divine. It comes as well as
\nis the result of a touch from within and above. Self-consecration may help one
\nto open to the touch or the touch may come of itself. But conversion <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 564<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

may also come
\nas the culmination of a long process of aspiration and Tapasya. There is no
\nfixed rule in these things. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If the psychic being comes to the front, then conversion becomes easy or
\nmay come instantaneously or the conversion may bring the psychic being to the
\nfront. Here, again, there is no rule. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It may be either way, there is a touch and the realisation also and the
\npsychic takes its proper place as the result or the psychic may come to the
\nfront and prepare the nature for the realisation. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Transformation is something progressive, but certainly there must be
\nrealisation before the aim of the transformation is possible.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What you say
\nis quite true. A simple, straight and sincere call and aspiration from the
\nheart is the one important thing and more essential and effective than
\ncapacities. Also to get the consciousness to turn inwards, not remain
\noutward-going is of great importance \u2013 to arrive at the inner call, the inner
\nexperience, the inner Presence. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The help you ask will be with you. Let the aspiration grow and open the
\ninner consciousness altogether.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What \u201creason\u201d
\ndo you need to aspire for peace, purity, freedom from the lower nature, light,
\nstrength, Ananda, divine love, divine service? These are things good in
\nthemselves and the highest possible aim of human endeavour.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yes, that is
\nthe way \u2013 the intensity of the aspiration brings the intensity of the
\nexperience and by repeated intensity of the experience, the change. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 565<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Aspiration is
\na call to the Divine, \u2013 will is the pressure of a conscious force on Nature.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is no
\nneed of words in aspiration. It can be expressed or unexpressed in words.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The
\naspiration need not be in the form of thought \u2013 it can be a feeling within that
\nremains even when the mind is attending to the work.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Aspiration is
\nto call the forces. When the forces have answered, there is a natural state of
\nquiet receptivity concentrated but spontaneous.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One has to
\naspire to the Divine and surrender and leave it to the Divine to do what is
\ntrue and right with the ādhāra<\/i>
\nonce it is perfected.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It depends on
\nthe stage which one has reached. Personal aspiration is necessary until there
\nis the condition in which all comes automatically and only a certain knowledge
\nand assent is necessary for the development.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Pulling comes
\nusually from a desire to get things for oneself \u2013 in aspiration there is a
\nself-giving for the higher consciousness to descend and take possession \u2013 the
\nmore intense the call the greater the self-giving. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 566<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

There is no
\ndoubt the mixture of desire in what you do, even in your endeavour of sadhana,
\nthat is the difficulty. The desire brings a movement of impatient effort and a
\nreaction of disappointment and revolt when difficulty is felt and the immediate
\nresult is not there and other confusing and disturbing feelings. Aspiration
\nshould be not a form of desire, but the feeling of an inner soul’s need, and a
\nquiet settled will to turn towards the Divine and seek the Divine. It is
\ncertainly not easy to get rid of this mixture of desire entirely \u2013 not easy for
\nanyone; but when one has the will to do it, this also can be effected by the help
\nof the sustaining Force.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If there are
\ngood desires, bad desires will come also. There is a place for will and
\naspiration, not for desire. If there is desire there will be attachment, demand,
\ncraving, want of equanimity, sorrow at not getting, all that is unyogic.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One should be
\nsatisfied with what one gets and still aspire quietly without struggle, for
\nmore \u2013 till all has come. No desire, no struggle \u2013 aspiration, faith, openness
\n\u2013 and the grace.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As for
\nworking, it depends on what you mean by the word. Desire often leads either to
\nexcess of effort, meaning often much labour and a limited fruit with strain,
\nexhaustion and in case of difficulty or failure, despondence, disbelief or
\nrevolt; or else it leads to pulling down the force. That can be done, but
\nexcept for the yogically strong and experienced, it is not always safe, though
\nit may be often very effective; not safe, first, because it may lead to violent
\nreactions or it brings down contrary or wrong or mixed forces which the sadhak
\nis not experienced enough to distinguish from the true ones. Or else it may
\nsubstitute the sadhak’s own limited power of experience or his mental and vital
\nconstructions for the free gift and true leading of the Divine. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 567<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Cases differ,
\neach has his own way of sadhana. But for you what I would recommend is constant
\nopenness, a quiet steady aspiration, no over-eagerness, a cheerful trust and
\npatience.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is the
\npsychic that gives the true aspiration \u2013 if the vital is purified and subjected
\nto the psychic, then the vital gives intensity \u2013 but if it is unpurified it
\nbrings in a rajasic intensity with impatience and reactions of depression and
\ndisappointment. As for the calm and equality needed, it must come down from
\nabove through the mind.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That is the
\npsychic aspiration, the psychic fire. Where the vital comes in is in the
\nimpatience for result and dissatisfaction if the result is not immediate. That
\nmust cease.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is in the nature of the unregenerated vital part of the surface to do
\nlike that. The true vital is different, calm and strong and a powerful
\ninstrument submitted to the Divine. But for that to come forward it is
\nnecessary first to get this fixed poise above in the mind \u2013 when the
\nconsciousness is there and the mind calm, free and wide, then the true vital
\ncan come forward.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The
\nimpatience and restless disquietude come from the vital which brings that even
\ninto the aspiration. The aspiration must be intense, calm and strong (that is
\nthe nature of the true vital also) and not restless and impatient, \u2013 then alone
\nit can be stable.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There can be
\nan intense but quiet aspiration which does not disturb the harmony of the inner
\nbeing. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 568<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

 No use doing
\nAsanas or Pranayam. It is not necessary to burn with passion. What is necessary
\nis a patient acquiring of the power of concentration and steady aspiration so
\nthat the silence you speak of may fix in the heart and spread to the other
\nmembers. Then the physical mind and the subconscient can be cleared and
\nquieted.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is a
\nmistake to think that a constant absence of vyākulatā<\/i>
\nis a sign that the aspiration or will for the Divine is not true. It is only in
\ncertain exclusive forms of Bhakti Yoga that a constant vyākulatā<\/i> or weeping or hāhākāra<\/i> (the latter is more often vital than
\npsychic) is the rule. Here though the psychic yearning may come sometimes or
\noften in intense waves, what comes as the basis is a quietude of the being and
\nin that quietude a more and more steady perception of the truth and seeking for
\nthe Divine and need of the Divine so that all is turned towards that more and
\nmore. It is into this that the experience and growing realisation come. Because
\nthe opening is growing in you, you are getting this ābhāsa<\/i> of the presence (beyond form) of the Mother. It is
\nas the inner realisation grows that the presence in the physical form takes its
\nfull value.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Prayers
\nshould be full of confidence without sorrow or lamenting.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Naturally,
\nthe more one-pointed the aspiration the swifter the progress. The difficulty
\ncomes when either the vital with its desires or the physical with its past
\nhabitual movements comes in \u2013 as they do with almost everyone. It is then that
\nthe dryness and difficulty of spontaneous aspiration come. This dryness is a
\nwell-known obstacle in all sadhana. But one has to persist and not be
\ndiscouraged. If one keeps the will fixed even in these barren periods, they
\npass and after their passage a greater force of aspiration and experience
\nbecomes possible. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 569<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

It is a
\nsuggestion of the tamasic forces that insist on the difficulty and create it
\nand the physical consciousness accepts it. Aspiration is never really
\ndifficult. Rejection may not be immediately effective but to maintain the will
\nof rejection and refusal is always possible.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No doubt the
\ntrue and strong aspiration is needed, but it is not a fact that the true thing
\nis not there in you. If it had not been, the Force could not have worked in
\nyou. But this true thing was seated in the psychic and in the heart and
\nwhenever these were active in the meditation it showed itself. But for the sake
\nof completeness the working had to come down into the physical consciousness
\nand establish the quietude and the openness there. The physical consciousness
\nis always in everybody in its own nature a little inert and in it a constant
\nstrong aspiration is not natural, it has to be created. But first there must be
\nthe opening, a purification, a fixed quietude, otherwise the physical vital
\nwill turn the strong aspiration into over-eagerness and impatience or rather it
\nwill try to give it that turn. Do not therefore be troubled if the state of the
\nnature seems to you to be too neutral and quiet, not enough aspiration and
\nmovement in it. This is a passage necessary for the progress and the rest will
\ncome.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You are
\nfinding it still difficult to bear the interval periods when all is quiet and
\nnothing being done on the surface. But such interval periods come to all and
\ncannot be avoided. You must not cherish the suggestion that it is because of
\nyour want of aspiration or any other unfitness that it is so and, if you had
\nthe constant ardent aspiration, then there would be no such periods and there
\nwould be an uninterrupted stream of experiences. It is not so. Even if the
\naspiration were there, the interval periods would come. If even in them one can
\naspire, so much the better \u2013 but the main thing is to meet them with quietude
\nand not become restless, depressed or despondent. A constant fire can be there
\nonly when a certain stage has been reached, that is when one is<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 570<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

always inside
\nconsciously living in the psychic being, but for that all this preparation of
\nthe mind, vital, physical is necessary. For this fire belongs to the psychic and one cannot command it always
\nmerely by the mind’s effort. The psychic has to be fully liberated and that is
\nwhat the Force is working to make fully possible. <\/p>\n

 IV<\/b> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Faith<\/i> \u2013 a dynamic entire belief
\nand acceptance.<\/p>\n

Belief<\/i> \u2013 intellectual
\nacceptance only.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Conviction<\/i> \u2013 intellectual belief held on
\nwhat seems to be good reasons.<\/p>\n

Reliance<\/i> \u2013 dependence on
\nanother for something, based on trust.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Trust<\/i> \u2013 the feeling of sure expectation
\nof another’s help and reliance on his word, character, etc.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Confidence<\/i> \u2013 the sense of security that
\ngoes with trust.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Faith is a
\nfeeling in the whole being, belief is mental, confidence means trust in a
\nperson\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>or in the Divine or a feeling of
\nsurety about the result of one’s seeking or endeavour.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mental faith
\ncombats doubt and helps to open to the true knowledge; vital faith prevents the
\nattacks of the hostile forces or defeats them and helps to open to the true
\nspiritual will and action; physical faith keeps one firm through all physical
\nobscurity, inertia or suffering and helps to open to the foundation of the true
\nconsciousness; psychic faith opens to the direct touch of the Divine and helps
\nto bring union and surrender.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mental faith
\nis very helpful, but it is a thing that can always be <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 571<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

temporarily
\nshaken or quite clouded \u2013 until the higher consciousness and experience get fixed
\nfor good. What endures even if concealed is the inner being’s aspiration or
\nneed for something higher which is the soul’s faith. That too may be concealed
\nfor a time but it reasserts itself \u2013 it undergoes eclipse but not extinction.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That is the
\ntrue resolution. Keep it firm inside you even if waves of other consciousness
\ncover on the surface. If one plants a faith or resolution like that firmly in
\noneself, then it remains and even if the mind for a time gets clouded or the
\nresolution dimmed, yet one finds it re-emerging automatically like a ship out
\nof a covering wave, and goes invincibly on with the journey through all
\nvicissitudes till it reaches the harbour.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The phrase
\n[\u201cblind faith\u201d] has no real meaning. I suppose they mean they will not believe
\nwithout proof \u2013 but the conclusion formed after proof is not faith, it is
\nknowledge or it is a mental opinion. Faith is something which one has before
\nproof or knowledge and it helps you to arrive at knowledge or experience. There
\nis no proof that God exists, but if I have faith in God, then I can arrive at
\nthe experience of the Divine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Faith does
\nnot depend upon experience; it is something that is there before experience.
\nWhen one starts the yoga, it is not usually on the strength of experience, but
\non the strength of faith. It is so not only in yoga and the spiritual life, but
\nin ordinary life also. All men of action, discoverers, inventors, creators of
\nknowledge proceed by faith and, until the proof is made or the thing done, they
\ngo on in spite of disappointment, failure, disproof, denial because of
\nsomething in them that tells them that this is the truth, the thing that must
\nbe followed and done. Ramakrishna even went so far as to say, when asked
\nwhether <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 572<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

blind faith
\nwas not wrong, that blind faith was the only kind to have, for faith is either
\nblind or it is not faith but something else \u2013 reasoned inference, proved
\nconviction or ascertained knowledge.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Faith is the soul’s witness to something not yet manifested, achieved or
\nrealised, but which yet the Knower within us, even in the absence of all
\nindications, feels to be true or supremely worth following or achieving. This
\nthing within us can last even when there is no fixed belief in the mind, even
\nwhen the vital struggles and revolts and refuses. Who is there that practises
\nthe yoga and has not his periods, long periods of disappointment and failure
\nand disbelief and darkness? But there is something that sustains him and even
\ngoes on in spite of himself, because it feels that what it followed after was
\nyet true and it more than feels, it knows. The fundamental faith in yoga is
\nthis, inherent in the soul, that the Divine exists and the Divine is the one
\nthing to be followed after \u2013 nothing else in life is worth having in comparison
\nwith that. So long as a man has that faith, he is marked for the spiritual life
\nand I will say that, even if his nature is full of obstacles and crammed with
\ndenials and difficulties, and even if he has many years of struggle, he is
\nmarked out for success in the spiritual life. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is this faith that you need to develop \u2013 a faith which is in
\naccordance with reason and common sense \u2013 that if the Divine exists and has
\ncalled you to the Path, (as is evident), then there must be a Divine Guidance
\nbehind and through and in spite of all difficulties you will arrive. Not to
\nlisten to the hostile voices that suggest failure or to the voices of
\nimpatient, vital haste that echo them, not to believe that because great
\ndifficulties are there, there can be no success or that because the Divine has
\nnot yet shown himself he will never show himself, but to take the position that
\neveryone takes when he fixes his mind on a great and difficult goal, \u201cI will go
\non till I succeed \u2013 all difficulties notwithstanding.\u201d To which the believer in
\nthe Divine adds, \u201cThe Divine exists, my following after the Divine cannot fail.
\nI will go on through everything till I find him.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 573<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

As for
\nexperience being necessary for faith and no faith possible without it, that
\ncontradicts human psychology altogether. Thousands of people have faith before
\nthey have experience. The doctrine \u201cNo belief without experience\u201d would be
\ndisastrous in spirituality or for that matter in the field of human action. The
\nsaint or bhakta have the faith in God long before they have the experience of
\nGod \u2013 the man of action has the faith in his cause long before his cause is
\ncrowned with success, otherwise they could not have been able to struggle
\npersistently towards their end in spite of defeat, failure and deadly peril. I
\ndon’t know what X means by true faith. For me faith is not intellectual belief
\nbut a function of the soul; when my belief has faltered, failed, gone out, the
\nsoul has remained steadfast, obstinately insisting, \u201cThis path and no other:
\nthe Truth I have felt is the Truth whatever the mind may believe.\u201d On the other
\nhand, experiences do not necessarily lead to faith. One sadhak writes to me: \u201cI
\nfeel the grace of the Mother descending into me, but I can’t believe it because
\nit may be my vital imagination.\u201d Another has experiences for years together,
\nthen falls down because he has, he says, \u201clost faith\u201d. All these things are not
\nmy imagination, they are facts and tell their own tale.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I certainly did not mean a moral but a spiritual change \u2013 a moral man may
\nbe chock-full of ego, an ego increased by his own goodness and rectitude.
\nFreedom from ego is spiritually valuable because then one can be centred, no
\nlonger in one’s personal self, but in the Divine. And that too is the condition
\nof bhakti….<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I don’t know what is X’s objection to emotion; it has its place, only it
\nmust not be always thrown outward but pressed inward so as to open fully the
\npsychic doors. What you say is perfectly correct \u2013 I am glad you are becoming
\nso lucid and clear-sighted, the result surely of a psychic change. Ego is a
\nvery curious thing and in nothing more than in its way of hiding itself and
\npretending it is not the ego. It can always hide even behind an aspiration to
\nserve the Divine. The only way is to chase it out of all its veils and corners.
\nYou are right also in thinking that this is really the most important part of
\nyoga. The Rajayogis are right in putting purification in front of everything \u2013
\nas I was also <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 574<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

right in
\nputting it in front along with concentration in The Synthesis of Yoga. You have
\nonly to look about you to see that experiences and even realisations cannot
\nbring one to the goal if this is not done \u2013 at any moment they can fall owing
\nto the vital still being impure and full of ego. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No surrender
\nto the psychic being is demanded, the surrender is to the Divine. One
\napproaches the Divine through faith; concrete experience comes as a result of
\nsadhana. One cannot demand a direct experience without doing anything to
\nprepare the consciousness for it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If one feels the call, one follows it \u2013 if there is no call, then there
\nis no need to seek the Divine. Faith is sufficient to start with \u2013 the idea
\nthat one must first understand and realise before one can seek is a mental
\nerror and, if it were true, would make all sadhana impossible \u2013 realisation can
\ncome only as a result of sadhana, not as its preliminary.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I spoke of a strong
\ncentral and, if possible, complete faith because your attitude seemed to be
\nthat you only cared for the full response \u2013 that is, realisation, the presence,
\nregarding all else as quite unsatisfactory, \u2013 and your prayer was not bringing
\nyou that. But prayer in itself does not usually bring that at once \u2013 only if
\nthere is a burning faith at the centre or a complete faith in all the parts of
\nthe being. That does not mean that those whose faith is not so strong or
\nsurrender complete cannot arrive, but usually they have at first to go by small
\nsteps and to face the difficulties of their nature until by perseverance or
\ntapasya they make a sufficient opening. Even a faltering faith and a slow and
\npartial surrender have their force and their result, otherwise only the rare
\nfew could do sadhana at all. What I mean by the central faith is a faith in the
\nsoul or the central being behind, a faith which is there even when the mind
\ndoubts and the vital despairs and the physical wants to collapse, and after the
\nattack is over <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 575<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

reappears and
\npushes on the path again. It may be strong and bright, it may be pale and in
\nappearance weak, but if it persists each time in going on, it is the real
\nthing. Fits of depression and darkness and despair are a tradition in the path
\nof sadhana \u2013 in all yogas oriental or occidental they seem to have been the
\nrule. I know all about them myself \u2013 but my experience has led me to the
\nperception that they are an unnecessary tradition and could be dispensed with
\nif one chose. That is why whenever they come in you or others I try to lift up
\nbefore them the gospel of faith. If still they come, one has to get through
\nthem as soon as possible and get back into the sun. Your dream of the sea was a
\nperfectly true one \u2013 in the end the storm and swell do not prevent the arrival
\nof the state of Grace in the sadhak and with it the arrival of the Grace
\nitself. That, I suppose is what something in you is always asking for \u2013 the
\nsupramental miracle of Grace, something that is impatient of the demand for
\ntapasya and self-perfection and long labour. Well, it can come, it has come to
\nseveral here after years upon years of flat failure and difficulty or terrible
\nstruggles. But it comes usually in that way \u2013 as opposed to a slowly developing
\nGrace \u2013 after much difficulty and not at once. If you go on asking for it in
\nspite of the apparent failure of response, it is sure to come.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Until we know
\nthe Truth (not mentally but by experience, by change of consciousness) we need
\nthe soul’s faith to sustain us and hold on to the Truth \u2013 but when we live in
\nthe knowledge, this faith is changed into knowledge.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Of course I am speaking of direct spiritual knowledge. Mental knowledge
\ncannot replace faith, so long as there is only mental knowledge, faith is still
\nneeded.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Faith is a
\nthing that precedes knowledge, not comes after knowledge. It is a glimpse of a
\ntruth which the mind has not yet seized as knowledge. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 576<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

It is not by
\nthe intellect that one can progress in the yoga but by psychic and spiritual
\nreceptivity \u2013 as for knowledge and true understanding, it grows in sadhana by
\nthe growth of the intuition, not of the physical intellect.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the things
\nof the subtle kind having to do with the working of consciousness in the
\nsadhana, one has to learn to feel and observe and see with the inner
\nconsciousness and to decide by the intuition with a plastic look on things
\nwhich does not make set definitions and rules as one has to do in outward life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Have faith in
\nthe Divine, in the Divine Grace, in the truth of the sadhana, in the eventual
\ntriumph of the spirit over its mental and vital and physical difficulties, in
\nthe Path and the Guru, in the experience of things other than are written in
\nthe philosophy of Haeckel or Huxley or Bertrand Russell, because if these
\nthings are not true, there is no meaning in yoga.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I do not see
\nhow the method of faith in the cells can be likened to eating a slice of the
\nmoon. Nobody ever got a slice of the moon, but the healing by faith in the
\ncells is an actual fact and a law of Nature and has been demonstrated often
\nenough even apart from yoga. The way to get faith and all things else is to
\ninsist on having them and refuse to flag or despair or give up until one has
\nthem \u2013 it is the way by which everything has been got since this difficult
\nearth began to have thinking and aspiring creatures upon it. It is to open
\nalways, always to the Light and turn one’s back on the Darkness. It is to
\nrefuse the voices that say persistently, \u201cYou cannot, you shall not, you are
\nincapable, you are the puppet of a dream,\u201d \u2013 for these are the enemy voices,
\nthey cut one off from the result that was coming, by their strident clamour and
\nthen triumphantly point to the barrenness <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 577<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

of the result
\nas a proof of their thesis. The difficulty of the endeavour is a known thing,
\nbut the difficult is not the impossible\u2014it is the difficult that has always
\nbeen accomplished and the conquest of difficulties makes up all that is
\nvaluable in the earth’s history. In the spiritual endeavour also it shall be
\nso. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You have only to set about resolutely slaying the Rakshasa and the doors
\nwill open to you as they have done to many others who were held up by their own
\nmind or vital nature.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There are two
\nkinds of faith:<\/p>\n

The faith that
\ncalls down the equanimity and the faith that calls down the realisation.<\/p>\n

These two faiths
\ncorrespond to two different aspects of the Divine.<\/p>\n

There is the
\nTranscendent Divine and there is the Cosmic Divine.<\/p>\n

The Will of
\nrealisation is that of the Transcendent Divine.<\/p>\n

The Cosmic Divine is what is concerned with the actual working out of
\nthings under the present circumstances. It is the Will of that Cosmic Divine
\nwhich is manifested in each circumstance, each movement of this world.<\/p>\n

The Cosmic Will is not, to our ordinary consciousness, something that
\nacts as an independent power doing whatever it chooses; it works through all
\nthese beings, through the forces at play in the world and the law of these
\nforces and their results \u2013 it is only when we open ourselves and get out of the
\nordinary consciousness that we can feel it intervening as an independent power
\nand overriding the ordinary play of the forces.<\/p>\n

Then too we can see that even in the play of the forces and in spite of
\ntheir distortions the Cosmic Will is working towards the eventual realisation
\nof the Will of the Transcendent Divine.<\/p>\n

The supramental Realisation is the Will of the Transcendent Divine which
\nwe have to work out. The circumstances under which we have to work it out are
\nthose of an inferior consciousness in which things can be distorted by our own
\nignorance, weaknesses and mistakes, and by the clash of conflicting forces. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 578<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

That is why
\nfaith and equanimity are indispensable.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We have to have the faith that in spite of our ignorance and errors and
\nweaknesses and in spite of the attacks of hostile forces and in spite of any
\nimmediate appearance of failure the Divine Will is leading us, through every
\ncircumstance, towards the final Realisation. This faith will give us
\nequanimity; it is a faith that accepts what happens, not definitively but as
\nsomething that has to be gone through on the way. Once equanimity is
\nestablished there can be established too another kind of faith, supported by
\nit, which can be made dynamic with something from the supramental consciousness
\nand can overcome the present circumstances and determine what will happen and
\nhelp to bring down the Realisation of the Will of the Transcendent Divine. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The faith that goes to the Cosmic Divine is limited in the power of its
\naction by the necessities of the play.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To get entirely free from these limitations one must reach the
\nTranscendent Divine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the play
\nof the cosmic forces, the will in the cosmos \u2013 as one might say \u2013 does not
\nalways work apparently in favour of a smooth and direct line for the work or
\nthe sadhana; it often brings in what seem to be upheavals, sudden turns which
\nbreak or deflect the line, opposing or upsetting circumstances or perplexing
\ndepartures from what had been temporarily settled or established. The one thing
\nis to preserve equanimity and make an opportunity and means of progress out of
\nall that happens in the course of the life and the sadhana. There is a higher
\nsecret Will transcendent behind the play and will of the cosmic forces \u2013 a play
\nwhich is always a mixture of things favourable and things adverse \u2013 and it is
\nthat Will which one must wait upon and have faith in; but you must not expect
\nto be able always to understand its workings. The mind wants this or that to be
\ndone, the line once taken to be maintained, but what the mind wants is not at
\nall always what is intended in a larger purpose. One has to follow indeed a
\nfixed central aim in the sadhana and not deviate from it, but not to build on
\noutward circumstances, <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 579<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

conditions,
\netc., as if they were fundamental things.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To the
\nquestion in your last letter there can be no reply except that it is only
\neither a single-minded faith or a fixed will that can give you the open road to
\nthe yoga. It is because your ideas and your will are in a constant state of
\nflux or of oscillation that you do not succeed. Even with a deficient faith, a
\nfixed mind and will can carry one on and bring the experiences by which an
\nuncertain faith is changed into certitude.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is the reason why it is difficult for me to answer your questions
\nabout the different alternatives. I may say that the way of the Gita is itself
\na part of the yoga here and those who have followed it, to begin with or as a
\nfirst stage, have a stronger basis than others for this yoga. To look down on
\nit, therefore, as something separate and inferior is not a right standpoint.
\nBut whatever it is, you must yourself choose, nobody can do it for you. Those
\nwho go and come, can do so profitably only if or because they have made the
\ndecision and keep to it; when they are here, it is for the yoga that they come,
\nwhen they are elsewhere, the will for the yoga remains with them there. You
\nhave to get rid of your constant reasonings and see whether you can do without
\nthe impulse towards yoga or not \u2013 if you cannot, then it is useless thinking of
\nthe ordinary life without yoga \u2013 your nature will compel you to seek after it
\neven if you have to seek all your life with a small result. But the small
\nresult is mainly due to the mind which always came in the way and the vital
\nweakness which gives it its support for its reasonings. If you fixed your will
\nirrevocably, that would give you a chance \u2013 and whether you followed it here or
\nelsewhere would make only a minor difference.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I suggested the Gita method for you because the opening which is
\nnecessary for the yoga here seems to be too difficult for you. If you made a
\nless strenuous demand upon yourself, there might be a greater chance. In any
\ncase, if you cannot return to the ordinary life, it seems, in the absence of an
\nopening to the Power that is here, the only course for you. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 580<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

It is quite
\nsufficient if there is the firm and constant will towards faith and
\nself-offering. It is understood that it is not possible for the human nature to
\nbe always without movements of doubt, obscurity or things not yet offered until
\nthe inner consciousness has sufficiently grown to make these impossible. It is
\nbecause it is so that the will is necessary so that the Force may work to
\nremove these things with full consent and will of the mind and heart of the
\nsadhak. To try to reject these things and make the will permanent is
\nsufficient, \u2013 for it is this effort that brings eventually the permanence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The depth of the sleep in your experience was intended to make you go
\ndeep inside and, as soon as you did so, you entered into the psychic and
\nspiritual state which takes the figure of the beautiful maidān<\/i> and the flow of white light and the coolness and peace.
\nThe staircase was a symbol of the ascent from this psychic and spiritual state
\ninto higher and higher levels of the spiritual consciousness where is the
\nsource of the light. The Mother’s hand was the symbol of her presence and help
\nwhich will draw you up and lead you to the top of the ladder. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Faith can be
\ntamasic and ineffective, e.g. \u201cI believe the Mother will do everything, so I
\nwill do nothing. When she wants, she will transform me\u201d. That is not a dynamic
\nbut a static and inert faith.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Faith,
\nreliance upon God, surrender and self-giving to the Divine Power are necessary
\nand indispensable. But reliance upon God must not be made an excuse for
\nindolence, weakness and surrender to the impulses of the lower Nature: it must
\ngo along with untiring aspiration and a persistent rejection of all that comes
\nin the way of the Divine Truth. The surrender to the Divine must not be turned
\ninto an excuse, a cloak or an occasion for surrender to one’s own desires and
\nlower movements or to one’s ego or to some Force of the ignorance and <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 581<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

 darkness that
\nputs on a false appearance of the Divine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One must rely
\non the Divine and yet do some enabling sadhana \u2013 the Divine gives the fruit not
\nby the measure of the sadhana but by the measure of the soul’s sincerity and
\nits aspiration. (I mean by soul’s sincerity its yearning after the Divine and
\nits aspiration towards the higher life.) Also, worrying does no good \u2013 \u201cI shall
\nbe this, I shall be that, what shall I be?\u201d Say: \u201cI am ready to be not what I
\nwant but what the Divine wants me to be,\u201d \u2013 all the rest should go on that
\nbase.<\/p>\n

  <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You have
\nseized the right principle again, to be all for the Mother and to have full
\nconfidence that one has only to go on quietly in that confidence and all will
\ncome that needs to come and all be done that the Divine wills to be done. The
\nworkings of the world are too subtle and strange and complex for the human mind
\nto understand it \u2013 it is only when the knowledge comes from above and one is
\ntaken into the higher consciousness that the understanding can come. Meanwhile
\nwhat one has to follow is the dictates of the deeper psychic heart within based
\non that faith and love which is the only sure guiding star.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have
\nalready explained all this to you. It is quite true that, left to yourself, you
\ncan do nothing; that is why you have to be in contact with the Force which is
\nthere to do for you what you cannot do for yourself. The only thing you have to
\ndo is to allow the force to act and put yourself on its side, which means to
\nhave faith in it, to rely upon it, not to trouble and harass yourself, to
\nremember it quietly, to call upon it quietly, to let it act quietly. If you do
\nthat, all else will be done for you \u2013 not all at once, because there is much to
\nclear away, but still it will be done steadily and more and more.  <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 582<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

The Divine
\nGrace and Power can do everything, but with the full assent of the sadhak. To
\nlearn to give that full assent is the whole meaning of the sadhana. It may take
\ntime either because of ideas in the mind, desires in the vital or inertia in
\nthe physical consciousness, but these things have to be and can be removed with
\nthe aid or by calling in the action of the Divine Force.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Do not allow
\nany discouragement to come upon you and have no distrust of the Divine Grace. Whatever
\ndifficulties are outside you, whatever weaknesses are inside you, if you keep
\nfirm hold on your faith and your aspiration, the secret Power will carry you
\nthrough and bring you back here. Even if you are oppressed with opposition and
\ndifficulties, even if you stumble, even if the way seems closed to you, keep
\nhold on your aspiration; if faith is clouded for a time, turn always in mind
\nand heart to us and it will be removed. As for outer help in the way of letters
\nwe are perfectly ready to give it to you…. But keep firm on the way \u2013 then in
\nthe end things open out of themselves and circumstances yield to the inner
\nspirit.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The
\ndifficulty must have come from distrust and disobedience. For distrust and
\ndisobedience are like falsehood (they are themselves a falsity, based on false
\nideas and impulses), they interfere in the action of the Power, prevent it from
\nbeing felt or from working fully and diminish the force of the Protection. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Not only in your inward concentration, but in your outward acts and
\nmovements you must take the right attitude. If you do that and put everything
\nunder the Mother’s guidance, you will find that difficulties begin to diminish
\nor are much more easily got over and things become steadily smoother. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In your work and acts you must do the same as in your concentration. Open
\nto the Mother, put them under her guidance, call in the peace, the supporting
\nPower, the protection and, in order that they may work, reject all wrong
\ninfluences that might <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 583<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

come in their
\nway by creating wrong, careless or unconscious movements. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Follow this principle and your whole being will become one, under one
\nrule, in the peace and sheltering Power and Light.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They [faith,
\nsurrender and samatā<\/i>] have to be
\nput into every part and atom of the being so that there may be no possibility
\nof a contrary vibration anywhere.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Whatever
\nadverse things present themselves you must meet them with courage and they will
\ndisappear and the help come. Faith and courage are the true attitude to keep in
\nlife and work always and in the spiritual experience also.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In moments of
\ntrial faith in the divine protection and the call for that protection; at all
\ntimes the faith that what the Divine wills is the best. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is what turns you towards the Divine that must be accepted as good for
\nyou \u2013 all is bad for you that turns you away from the Divine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is no
\nreason for your trouble other than this readiness to listen to their knock and
\nopen the door. If you desire only the Divine, there is an absolute certitude
\nthat you will reach the Divine, but all these questionings and repinings at
\neach movement only delay and keep an impending curtain before the heart and the
\neyes. For at every step, when one makes an advance, the opposite forces will
\nthrow these doubts like a rope between the legs and stop one short with a
\nstumble \u2013 it is their m\u00e9tier<\/i> to do
\nthat…. One must say, \u201cSince I want only the Divine, my success <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 584<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

is sure, I
\nhave only to walk forward in all confidence and His own Hand will be there
\nsecretly leading me to Him by His own way and at His own time.\u201d That is what
\nyou must keep as your constant mantra. Anything else one may doubt but that he
\nwho desires only the Divine shall reach the Divine is a certitude and more
\ncertain than two and two make four. That is the faith every sadhak must have at
\nthe bottom of his heart, supporting him through every stumble and blow and
\nordeal. It is only false ideas still casting their shadows on your mind that
\nprevent you from having it. Push them aside and the back of the difficulty will
\nbe broken.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Keep firm
\nfaith in the victory of the Light and face with calm equanimity the resistances
\nof Matter and human personality to their own transformation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is not a
\nhope but a certitude that the complete transformation of the nature will
\ntake\u00a0 <\/span>place.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Even if there
\nis much darkness \u2013 and this world is full of it and the physical nature of man also
\n\u2013 yet a ray of the true Light can prevail eventually against a tenfold
\ndarkness. Believe that and cleave to it always. <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nV<\/b> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

Surrender is
\ngiving oneself to the Divine \u2013 to give everything one is or has to the Divine
\nand regard nothing as one’s own, to obey only the Divine will and no other, to
\nlive for the Divine and not for the ego. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 585<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Surrender
\nmeans to be entirely in the Mother’s hands, and not to resist in any way by
\negoism or otherwise her Light, Knowledge, Will, the working of her Force etc.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is then a sańkalpa<\/i> of surrender. But the
\nsurrender must be to the Mother \u2013 not even to the Force, but to the Mother
\nherself.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is no
\nneed of all this complication. If the psychic manifests, it will not ask you to
\nsurrender to it, but to surrender to the Mother.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Divine
\ngives itself to those who give themselves without reserve and in all their
\nparts to the Divine. For them the calm, the light, the power, the bliss, the
\nfreedom, the wideness, the heights of knowledge, the seas of Ananda.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00b9<\/span>It is meant in the inner sense
\nonly \u2013 no outer greatness is meant. All submission is regarded by the ego as
\nlowering and lessening itself, but really submission to the Divine increases and
\ngreatens the being, that is what is meant.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If there is
\nno surrender, there can be no transformation of the whole being.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If one wanted
\nthe Divine, the Divine himself would take up the<\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b9<\/span>This is an explanation of
\nthe following passage from Conversations by the Mother: \u00a0<\/span>\u201cSurrender will not diminish, but increase
\nyou; it will not lessen or weaken or destroy your personality, it will fortify
\nand aggrandise it.\u201d (1966 Edition), p. 126.<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 586<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

purifying of
\nthe heart and develop the sadhana and give the necessary experiences; it can
\nand does happen in that way if one has trust and confidence in the Divine and
\nthe will to surrender. For such a taking up involves one’s putting oneself in
\nthe hands of the Divine rather than relying on one’s own efforts alone and this
\nimplies one’s putting one’s trust and confidence in the Divine and a
\nprogressive self-giving. It is in fact the principle of sadhana that I myself
\nfollowed and it is the central process of yoga as I envisage it. It is, I suppose,
\nwhat Sri Ramakrishna meant by the method of the baby-cat in his image. But all
\ncannot follow that at once; it takes time for them to arrive at it \u2013 it grows
\nmost when the mind and vital fall quiet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What I mean by surrender is this inner surrender of the mind and vital.
\nThere is, of course, the outer surrender also: the\u00a0 <\/span>giving up of all that is found to conflict
\nwith the spirit or need of the sadhana, the offering, the obedience to the
\nguidance of the Divine, whether directly, if one has reached that stage, or
\nthrough the psychic or to the guidance of the Guru. I may say that prāyopaveśana<\/i> (fasting for a
\nlong time) has not anything to do with surrender: it is a form of tapasya of a
\nvery austere and, in my opinion, very excessive kind, often dangerous. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The core of the inner surrender is trust and confidence in the Divine.
\nOne takes the attitude: \u201cI want the Divine and nothing else. I want to give
\nmyself entirely to him and since my soul wants that, it cannot be but that I
\nshall meet and realise him. I ask nothing but that and his action in me to
\nbring me to him, his action secret or open, veiled or manifest. I do not insist
\non my own time and way; let him do all in his own time and way; I shall believe
\nin him, accept his will, aspire steadily for his light and presence and joy, go
\nthrough all difficulties and delays, relying on him and never giving up. Let my
\nmind be quiet and trust him and let him open it to his light; let my vital be
\nquiet and turn to him alone and let him open it to his calm and joy. All for
\nhim and myself for him. Whatever happens, I will keep to this aspiration and
\nself-giving and go on in perfect reliance that it will be done.\u201d <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That is the
\nattitude into which one must grow; for certainly it cannot be made perfect at
\nonce \u2013 mental and vital movements <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 587<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

come across \u2013
\nbut if one keeps the will to it, it will grow in the being. The rest is a
\nmatter of obedience to the guidance when it makes itself manifest, not allowing
\none’s mental and vital movements to interfere. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is not my intention to say that this way is the only way and sadhana
\ncannot be done otherwise \u2013 there are so many others by which one can approach
\nthe Divine. But this is the only one I know by which the taking up of sadhana
\nby the Divine becomes a sensible fact before the preparation of the nature is
\ndone. In other methods the Divine action may be felt from time to time, but it
\nremains mostly behind the veil till all is ready. In some sadhanas the divine
\naction is not recognised: all must be done by tapasya. In most there is a
\nmixing of the two: the tapasya finally calling the direct help and
\nintervention. The idea and experience of the Divine doing all belong to the
\nyoga based on surrender. But whatever way is followed, the one thing to be done
\nis to be faithful and go on to the end. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All can be done by the Divine, \u2013 the heart and nature purified, the inner
\nconsciousness awakened, the veils removed, \u2013 if one gives oneself to the Divine
\nwith trust and confidence and even if one cannot do so fully at once, yet the
\nmore one does so, the more the inner help and guidance come and the experience
\nof the Divine grows within. If the questioning mind becomes less active and
\nhumility and the will to surrender grow, this ought to be perfectly possible.
\nNo other strength and tapasya are then needed, but this alone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the early
\npart of the sadhana \u2013 and by early I do not mean a short part \u2013 effort is
\nindispensable. Surrender of course, but surrender is not a thing that is done
\nin a day.\u00a0 <\/span>The mind has its ideas and it
\nclings to them; the human vital resists surrender, for what it calls surrender
\nin the early stages is a doubtful kind of self-giving with a demand in it; the
\nphysical consciousness is like a stone and what it calls surrender is often no
\nmore than inertia. It is only the psychic that knows how to surrender and the
\npsychic is usually very much veiled in the beginning. When the <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 588<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

psychic
\nawakes, it can bring a sudden and true surrender of the whole being, for the
\ndifficulty of the rest is rapidly dealt with and disappears. But till then
\neffort is indispensable. Or else it is necessary till the Force comes flooding
\ndown into the being from above and takes up the sadhana, does it for one more
\nand more and leaves less and less to individual effort \u2013 but even then, if not
\neffort, at least aspiration and vigilance are needed till the possession of
\nmind, will, life and body by the Divine Power is complete. I have dealt with
\nthis subject, I think, in one of the chapters of The<\/i> Mother<\/i>. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On the other hand, there are some people who start with a genuine and
\ndynamic will for a total surrender. It is those who are governed by the psychic
\nor are governed by a clear and enlightened mental will which, having once
\naccepted surrender as the law of the sadhana, will stand no nonsense about it
\nand insists on the other parts of the being following its direction. Here there
\nis still effort; but it is so ready and spontaneous and has so much the sense
\nof a greater Force behind it that the sadhak hardly feels that he is making an
\neffort at all. In the contrary case of a will in mind or vital to retain
\nself-will, a reluctance to give up your independent movement, there must be
\nstruggle and endeavour until the wall between the instrument in front and the
\nDivinity behind or above is broken. No rule can be laid down which applies
\nwithout distinction to everybody \u2013 the variations in human nature are too great
\nto be covered by a single trenchant rule.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is not
\npossible to get rid of the stress on personal effort at once \u2013 and not always
\ndesirable; for personal effort is better than tamasic inertia. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The personal effort has to be transformed progressively into a movement
\nof the Divine Force. If you feel conscious of the Divine Force, then call it in
\nmore and more to govern your effort, to take it up, to transform it into
\nsomething not yours, but the Mother’s. There will be a sort of transfer, a
\ntaking up of the forces at work in the personal Adhar \u2013 a transfer not suddenly
\ncomplete but progressive.
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 589<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

But the
\npsychic poise is necessary: the discrimination must develop which sees
\naccurately what is the Divine Force, what is the element of personal effort,
\nand what is brought in as a mixture from the lower cosmic forces. And until the
\ntransfer is complete which always takes time, there must always be as a
\npersonal contribution, a constant consent to the true Force, a constant
\nrejection of any lower mixture. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At present to give up personal effort is not what is wanted, but to call
\nin more and more the Divine Power and govern and guide by it the personal
\nendeavour.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is not
\nadvisable in the early stages of the sadhana to leave everything to the Divine
\nor expect everything from it without the need of one’s own endeavour. That is
\nonly possible when the psychic being is in front and influencing the whole
\naction (and even then vigilance and a constant assent are necessary), or else
\nlater on in the ultimate stages of the yoga when a direct or almost direct
\nsupramental force is taking up the consciousness; but this stage is very far
\naway as yet. Under other conditions this attitude is likely to lead to
\nstagnation and inertia. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is only the more mechanical parts of the being that can truly say they
\nare helpless: the physical (material) consciousness, especially, is inert in
\nits nature and moved either by the mental and vital or by the higher forces.
\nBut one has always the power to put the mental will or vital push at the
\nservice of the Divine. One cannot be sure of the immediate result, for the
\nobstruction of the lower Nature or the pressure of the adverse forces can often
\nact successfully for a time, even for a long time, against the necessary
\nchange. One has then to persist, to put always the will on the side of the
\nDivine, rejecting what has to be rejected, opening oneself to the true Light
\nand the true Force, calling it down quietly, steadfastly, without tiring,
\nwithout depression or impatience, until one feels the Divine Force at work and
\nthe obstacles beginning to give way.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You say you are conscious of your ignorance and obscurity. If it is only
\na general consciousness, that is not enough. But if <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 590<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

you are
\nconscious of it in the details, in its actual working, then that is sufficient
\nto start with; you have to reject steadfastly the wrong workings of which you
\nare conscious and make your mind and vital a quiet and clear field for the
\naction of the Divine Force.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Active
\nsurrender is when you associate your will with the Divine Will, reject what is
\nnot the Divine, assent to what is the Divine. Passive surrender is when
\neverything is left entirely to the Divine \u2013 that few can really do, because in
\npractice it turns out that you surrender to the lower nature under pretext of
\nsurrendering to the Divine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There are two
\npossibilities, one of purification by personal effort, which takes a long time,
\nanother by a direct intervention of the Divine Grace which is usually rapid in its
\naction. For the latter there must be a complete surrender and self-giving and
\nfor that again usually it is necessary to have a mind that can remain quite
\nquiet and allow the Divine Force to act supporting it with its complete
\nadhesion at every step, but otherwise remaining still and quiet. This last
\ncondition which resembles the baby-cat attitude spoken of by Ramakrishna, is
\ndifficult to have. Those who are accustomed to a very active movement of their
\nthought and will in all they do, find it difficult to still the activity and
\nadopt the quietude of mental self-giving. This does not mean that they cannot
\ndo the yoga or cannot arrive at self-giving \u2013 only the purification and the
\nself-giving take a long time to accomplish and one must have the patience and
\nsteady perseverance and resolution to go through.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A complete
\nsurrender is not possible in so short a time, \u2013 for a complete surrender means
\nto cut the knot of the ego in each part of the being and offer it, free and
\nwhole, to the Divine. The mind,
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 591<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

the vital,
\nthe physical consciousness (and even each part of these in all its movements)
\nhave one after the other to surrender separately, to give up their own way and
\nto accept the way of the Divine. But what one can do is to make from the
\nbeginning a central resolve and self-dedication and to implement it in whatever
\nway one finds open, at each step, taking advantage of each occasion that offers
\nitself to make the self-giving complete. A surrender in one direction makes
\nothers easier, more inevitable; but it does not of itself cut or loosen the
\nother knots, and especially those which are very intimately bound up with the
\npresent personality and its most cherished formations may often present great
\ndifficulties, even after the central will has been fixed and the first seals
\nput on its resolve in practice.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It [the
\nattitude of surrender] cannot be absolutely complete in the beginning, but it
\ncan be true \u2013 if the central will is sincere and there is the faith and the
\nBhakti. There may be contrary movements, but these will be unable to stand for
\nlong and the imperfection of the surrender in the lower part will not seriously
\ninterfere.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It depends on
\nwhat is meant by absolute surrender \u2013 the experience of it in some part of the
\nbeing or the fact of it in all parts of the being. The former may easily come
\nat any time; it is the latter that takes time to complete.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The absolute
\nsurrender must be not only an experience in meditation, but a fact governing
\nall the life, all the thoughts, feelings, actions. Till then the use of one’s
\nown will and effort is necessary, but an effort in which also there is the
\nspirit of surrender, calling in the Force to support the will and effort and
\nundisturbed by success or failure. When the Force takes up the sadhana, then
\nindeed effort may cease, but still there will be the necessity of the <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 592<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

constant
\nassent of the being and a vigilance so that one may not admit a false Force at
\nany point.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It [the idea that
\nthe sadhana is done by the Divine rather than by oneself] is a truth but a
\ntruth that does not become effective for the consciousness until or in
\nproportion as it is realised. The people who stagnate because of it are those
\nwho accept the idea but do not realise \u2013 so they have neither the force of
\ntapasya nor that of the Divine Grace. On the other hand those who can realise
\nit feel even behind their tapasya and in it the action of the Divine Force. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For those who
\ndo not make any effort, \u2013 that absence of effort is itself a difficulty \u2013 they
\ndo not progress.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Talk of
\nsurrender or a mere idea or tepid wish for integral consecration will not do;
\nthere must be the push for a radical and total change. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is not by taking a mere mental attitude that this can be done or even
\nby any number of inner experiences which leave the outer man as he was. It is
\nthis outer man who has to open, to surrender and to change. His every least
\nmovement, habit, action has to be surrendered, seen, held up and exposed to the
\ndivine Light, offered to the divine Force for its old forms and motives to be
\ndestroyed and the divine Truth and the action of the transforming consciousness
\nof the Divine Mother to take their place.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If there is
\nnot a complete surrender, then it is not possible to adopt the baby-cat
\nattitude, − it becomes mere tamasic passivity calling itself surrender.
\nIf a complete surrender is not possible <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 593<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

in the
\nbeginning, it follows that personal effort is necessary.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The
\nmechanical movements are always more difficult to stop by the mental will,
\nbecause they do not in the least depend upon reason or any mental justification
\nbut are founded upon association or else a mere mechanical memory and habit. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The practice of rejection prevails in the end; but with personal effort
\nonly, it may take a long time. If you can feel the Divine Power working in you,
\nthen it should become easier. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There should be nothing inert or tamasic in the self-giving to the
\nguidance and it should not be made by any part of the vital into a plea for not
\nrejecting the suggestions of lower impulse and desire. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There are always two ways of doing the yoga \u2013 one by the action of a
\nvigilant mind and vital seeing, observing, thinking and deciding what is or is
\nnot to be done. Of course it acts with the Divine Force behind it, drawing or
\ncalling in that Force \u2013 for otherwise nothing much can be done. But still it is
\nthe personal effort that is prominent and assumes most of the burden.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The other way is that of the psychic being, the consciousness opening to
\nthe Divine, not only opening the psychic and\u00a0
\n<\/span>bringing it forward, but opening the mind, the vital\u00a0 <\/span>and the physical, receiving the Light,
\nperceiving what is to be done, feeling and seeing it done by the Divine Force
\nitself and helping constantly by its own vigilant and conscious assent to and
\ncall for the Divine working.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Usually there cannot but be a mixture of these two ways until the
\nconsciousness is ready to be entirely open, entirely submitted to the Divine’s
\norigination of all its action. It is then that all responsibility disappears
\nand there is no personal burden on the shoulders of the sadhak.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So long as
\nthere is not the full presence and conscious working of the higher Force, some
\namount of the personal effort is <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 594<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

indispensable.
\nTo do the sadhana for the sake of the Divine and not for one’s own sake is of
\ncourse the true attitude.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Everything should
\nbe for the sake of the Divine, this also. As for leaving the result to the
\nDivine, it depends on what you mean by the phrase. If it implies dependence on
\nthe Divine Grace and equanimity and patience in the persistent aspiration, then
\nit is all right. But it must not be extended to cover slackness and
\nindifference in the aspiration and endeavour.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I do not see
\nwhy surrender of any kind would be to go to sleep or close yourself up from all
\noutward things including the Mother. Anyhow, it is a conscious surrender that
\nhas to be made; but there need not be any restless struggle in it or laying
\nundue stress on deficiencies and difficulties. As for the Mother’s attitude,
\nyou have to look within to know it; if you look from outside, you will not be able
\nto understand it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tapasya has
\npredominated in your sadhana, for you have a fervour and active energy which
\npredisposes you to that. No way is entirely easy, and in that of surrender the
\ndifficulty is to make a true and complete surrender. Once it is made, it
\ncertainly makes things easier \u2013 not that things are all done in no time or that
\nthere are no difficulties, but there is an assurance, a support, an absence of
\ntension which gives the consciousness rest as well as strength and freedom from
\nthe worst forms of resistance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yes, of
\ncourse you are right. The process of surrender is itself a Tapasya. Not only
\nso, but in fact a double process of Tapasya and increasing surrender persists
\nfor a long time even when the <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 595<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

surrender has
\nfairly well begun. But a time comes when one feels the Presence and the force
\nconstantly and more and more feels that that is doing everything \u2013 so that the
\nworst difficulties cannot disturb this sense and personal effort is no longer
\nnecessary, hardly even possible. That is the sign of the full surrender of the
\nnature into the hands of the Divine. There are some who take this position in
\nfaith even before there is this experience and if the Bhakti and the faith are
\nstrong it carries them through till the experience is there. But all cannot
\ntake this position from the beginning \u2013 and for some it would be dangerous
\nsince they might put themselves into the hand of a wrong Force thinking it to
\nbe the Divine. For most it is necessary to grow through Tapasya into surrender.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yes, if there
\nis the sense of the Divine Will behind all the Tapasya and receiving it and
\nbestowing the fruit \u2013 It is at least a first form of surrender.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When the will
\nand energy are concentrated and used to control the mind, vital and physical
\nand change them or to bring down the higher consciousness or for any other
\nyogic purpose or high purpose, that is called Tapasya.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The ways of
\nthe Divine are not like those of the human mind or according to our patterns
\nand it is impossible to judge them or to lay down for Him what He shall or
\nshall not do, for the Divine knows better than we can know. If we admit the
\nDivine at all, both true reason and Bhakti seem to me to be at one in demanding
\nimplicit faith and surrender.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To understand
\ndivine movements one must enter into the divine <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 596<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

consciousness,
\ntill then faith and surrender are the only right attitude. How can the mind
\njudge what is beyond all its measures?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Not to impose
\none’s mind and vital will on the Divine but to receive the Divine’s will and
\nfollow it, is the true attitude of sadhana. Not to say, \u201cThis is my right,
\nwant, claim, need, requirement, why do I not get it?\u201d but to give oneself, to
\nsurrender and to receive with joy whatever the Divine gives, not grieving or
\nrevolting, is the better way. Then what you receive will be the right thing for
\nyou.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Divine is
\nnot bound to do that [to give all our real needs], He can give or not give;
\nwhether He gives or does not give makes no difference to the one who is
\nsurrendered to Him. Otherwise there is an arri\u00e8re<\/i>
\npens\u00e9e<\/i> in the surrender which is not
\nthen complete.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To be free
\nfrom all preference and receive joyfully whatever comes from the Divine Will is
\nnot possible at first for any human being. What one should have at first is the
\nconstant idea that what the Divine wills is always for the best even when the
\nmind does not see how it is so, to accept with resignation what one cannot yet
\naccept with gladness and so to arrive at a calm equality which is not shaken
\neven when on the surface there may be passing movements of a momentary reaction
\nto outward happenings. If that is once firmly founded, the rest can come.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The essence
\nof surrender is to accept whole-heartedly the influence and the guidance when
\nthe joy and peace come down, to accept them without question or cavil and let
\nthem grow; when the Force is felt at work, to let it without opposition, when
\nthe <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Page \u2013 597<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Knowledge is
\ngiven, to receive and follow it, when the Will is revealed, to make oneself its
\ninstrument. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Divine can lead, he does not drive. There is an internal freedom
\npermitted to every mental being called `man’ to assent or not to assent to the
\nDivine leading: how else can any real spiritual evolution be done?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Each person
\nhas his own freedom of choice up to a certain point \u2013 unless he makes the full
\nsurrender \u2013 and as he uses the freedom, has to take the spiritual or other
\nconsequences. The help can only be offered, not imposed. Silence, absence of
\nfrank confession, means a desire in the vital to go its own way. When there is
\nno longer concealment, when there is the physical self-opening to the Divine,
\nthen the Divine can intervene.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All the play
\nin this world is based on a certain relative free will in the individual being.
\nEven in the sadhana it remains and his consent is necessary at each step \u2013 even
\nthough it is by surrender to the Divine that he escapes from ignorance and
\nseparateness and ego, it must be at every step a free surrender.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One offers to
\nthe Divine in order to get rid of the illusion of separation \u2013 the very act of offering
\nimplies that all belongs to the Divine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Self-surrender
\nat first comes through love and bhakti more than through ātmaj\u00f1āna. <\/i>But it is true that with ātmaj\u00f1āna<\/i> the complete surrender becomes more possible. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 598<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Surrender and
\nlove-bhakti are not contrary things \u2013 they go together. It is true that at
\nfirst surrender can be made through knowledge by the mind but it implies a
\nmental bhakti and, as soon as the surrender reaches the heart, the bhakti
\nmanifests as a feeling and with the feeling of bhakti love comes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There can be
\ndevotion and surrender in the higher mind experience but it is not inevitable
\nas in the psychic. In the higher mind one may be too conscious of identity with
\nthe \u201cBrahman\u201d to have devotion or surrender.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One can have
\nthe Brahmic condition without self-giving, because it is the impersonal Brahman
\nto which one turns. Renunciation of desires and of all identification with
\nNature is its condition. One can have self-giving of the nature to the Divine
\nas well as of the soul and reach by it the Brahmic condition which is not only
\nnegative but positive, a release of the nature itself and not only a release
\nfrom the nature.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Brahmic
\ncondition brings a negative peace of śānti<\/i>
\nand mukti in the soul. Self-giving brings a positive freedom which can become
\nalso a dynamic force of action in the nature.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you are
\nsurrendered only in the higher consciousness, with no peace or purity in the lower,
\ncertainly that is not enough and you have to aspire for the peace and purity
\neverywhere.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When the
\npsychic being and the heart and the thinking mind <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 599<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

have
\nsurrendered, the rest is a matter of time and process \u2013 and there is no reason
\nfor disturbance. The central and effective surrender has been made.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is never
\ntoo early to make the complete surrender. Some things may need to wait, but not
\nthat.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is on that
\nconsciousness of complete surrender that the psychic foundation of sadhana can
\nbe made. If once it fixes itself, then, whatever difficulties remain to be
\novercome, the course of the sadhana becomes perfectly easy, sunlit, natural
\nlike the opening of a flower. The feeling you have is an indication of what can
\nand must develop in you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If
\ndifficulties that arise are in the nature itself, it is inevitable that they
\nshould rise and manifest themselves. Surrender is not easy, it is resisted by a
\nlarge part of the nature. If the mind forms the will to surrender, all these
\ninner obstacles are bound to show themselves; the sadhak has then to observe
\nthem and detach himself from them, reject them from his nature and overcome.
\nThis may take a very long time but it has to be done. Outer obstacles cannot prevent
\nthe inner surrender unless they are supported by a resistance in the nature
\nitself.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It depends on
\nthe sadhak. Some may find it necessary to surrender the external activities
\nfirst so as to bring the inner surrender.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The surrender
\nof the vital is always difficult, because of the <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 600<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

unwillingness
\nof the forces of the universal vital Ignorance. But that does not mean a
\nfundamental incapacity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is
\nimpossible to become like a child giving oneself entirely until the psychic is
\nin control and stronger than the vital.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The ordinary
\nvital is never willing to surrender. The true inmost vital is different \u2013
\nsurrender to the Divine is as necessary to it as to the psychic.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If there is
\nany identification with the vital demands or outcries, that necessarily
\ndiminishes the surrender for the time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was from
\nyour description of the reaction that I said there was a vital demand. In the
\npure psychic or spiritual self-giving there are no reactions of this kind; no
\ndespondency or despair, no saying, \u201cWhat have I gained by seeking the Divine?\u201d,
\nno anger, revolt, abhiman, wish to go away \u2013 such as you describe here \u2013 but an
\nabsolute confidence and a persistence in clinging to the Divine under all
\nconditions. That is what I wanted you to have; it is the only basis in which
\none is free from troubles and reactions and goes steadily forward. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But are such feelings a sign of the soul’s self-giving? If there is no
\nvital mixture, how do these things come when I write to you and as the result
\nof my writing and trying to show you the way? <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is the first movement of this part to revolt when it is shown its own
\nnature and asked to change. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Difficult? It is the first principle of our sadhana that surrender is the
\nmeans of fulfilment and so long as ego or vital demand and desire are
\ncherished, complete surrender is impossible \u2013 the self-giving is incomplete. We
\nhave never concealed <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 601<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

that. It may
\nbe difficult and it is; but it is the very principle of the sadhana. Because it
\nis difficult it has to be done steadily and patiently till the work is
\ncomplete. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You have to go on rejecting the vital mixture every time it rises. If you
\nare steadfast in rejecting, it will lose more and more of its force and fade
\nout. <\/p>\n

That means it is an obstinate but irrational and mechanical survival of
\nthe old movement. That in fact is how these things try to survive. It is bound
\nto go if you do not give it fresh life. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have no doubt of it \u2013 you have only to understand it rightly and you
\ncan go at once to the right ground.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Most of the
\nsadhaks have similar thoughts \u2013 or had them at one time or another. They rise
\nfrom the vital ego which either does not want the Divine or wants It for its
\nown purpose and not for the Divine’s purpose. It gets furious when it is
\npressed to change or when its desires are not satisfied \u2013 that is at the root
\nof all these things. That is why we insist on surrender in this yoga\u2014because it
\nis only by the surrender (especially of the vital ego) that these things can go
\n\u2013 to accept the Divine for the Divine’s sake and for no other motive and in the
\nDivine’s way and not in one’s own way or on one’s own conditions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is the
\npsychic surrender in the physical that you have begun to experience.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All the parts are essentially offered, but the surrender has to be made
\ncomplete by the growth of the psychic self-offering in all of them and in all
\ntheir movements separately and together. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To be enjoyed by the Divine is to be entirely surrendered so that one
\nfeels the Divine Presence, Power, Light, Ananda possessing the whole being
\nrather than oneself possessing these things for one’s own satisfaction. It is a
\nmuch greater ecstasy to be thus surrendered and possessed by the Divine than
\noneself to be the possessor. At the same time by this surrender there <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 602<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

comes also a
\ncalm and happy mastery of self and nature.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have said
\nthat if one has the principle of surrender and union in the mind and heart
\nthere is no difficulty in extending it to the obscurer parts of the physical
\nand the subconscient. As you have this central surrender and union, you can
\neasily complete it everywhere. A quiet aspiration for complete consciousness is
\nall that is needed. Then the material and subconscient will become penetrated
\nby the light like the rest and there will come in a quietude, wideness, harmony
\nfree from all reactions that will be the basis of the final change.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is a
\nstate in which the sadhak is conscious of the Divine Force working in him or of
\nits results at least and does not obstruct its descent or its action by his own
\nmental activities, vital restlessness or physical obscurity and inertia. That
\nis openness to the Divine. Surrender is the best way of opening; but aspiration
\nand quietness can do it up to a certain point so long as there is not the
\nsurrender. Surrender means to consecrate everything in oneself to the Divine,
\nto offer all one is and has, not to insist on one’s ideas, desires, habits,
\netc., but to allow the divine Truth to replace them by its knowledge, will and
\naction everywhere.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Opening is a
\nthing that happens by itself by sincerity of will and aspiration. It means to
\nbe able to receive the higher forces that come from the Mother.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The object of
\nthe self-opening is to allow the force of the Divine to flow in bringing light,
\npeace, Ananda, etc. and to do the work of transformation. When the being so
\nreceives the Divine Shakti and it works in him, produces its results (whether
\nhe is entirely <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 603<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

 conscious of
\nthe process or not,) then he is said to be open.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

These are
\nacts of the mind; openness is a state of consciousness which keeps it turned to
\nthe Mother, free from other movements expecting and able to receive what may
\ncome from the Divine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is by
\nconfidence in the Mother that the opening needed will come when your
\nconsciousness is ready. <\/p>\n

It is not by
\nmeditation alone that what is needed will come. It is by faith and openness to
\nthe Mother.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Keep yourself
\nopen to the Mother, remember her always and let her Force work in you,
\nrejecting all other influences \u2013 that is the rule for yoga.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the
\npractice of yoga, what you aim at can only come by the opening of the being to
\nthe Mother’s force and the persistent rejection of all egoism and demand and
\ndesire, all motives except the aspiration for the Divine Truth. If this is
\nrightly done, the Divine Power and Light will begin to work and bring in the
\npeace and equanimity, the inner strength, the purified devotion and the
\nincreasing consciousness and self-knowledge which are the necessary foundation
\nfor the siddhi of the yoga.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In this yoga
\nthe whole principle is to open oneself to the Divine Influence. It is there
\nabove you and, if you can once become conscious of it, you have then to call it
\ndown into you. It descends into the mind and into the body as Peace, as a
\nLight, as a Force that works, as the Presence of the Divine with or without <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage\u2013 604<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

form, as
\nAnanda. Before one has this consciousness, one has to have faith and aspire for
\nthe opening. Aspiration, call, prayer are forms of one and the same thing and
\nare all effective; you can take the form that comes to you or is easiest to you.
\nThe other way is concentration; you concentrate your consciousness in the heart
\n(some do it in the head or above the head) and meditate on the Mother in the
\nheart and call her in there. One can do either and both at different times \u2013
\nwhatever comes naturally to you or you are moved to do at the moment.
\nEspecially in the beginning the one great necessity is to get the mind quiet,
\nreject at the time of meditation all thoughts and movements that are foreign to
\nthe sadhana. In the quiet mind there will be a progressive preparation for the
\nexperience. But you must not become impatient, if all is not done at once; it
\ntakes time to bring entire quiet into the mind; you have to go on till the
\nconsciousness is ready.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In this yoga
\nall depends on whether one can open to the Influence or not. If there is a
\nsincerity in the aspiration and a patient will to arrive at the higher
\nconsciousness in spite of all obstacles, then the opening in one form or
\nanother is sure to come. But it may take a long or short time according to the
\nprepared or unprepared condition of the mind, heart and body; so if one has not
\nthe necessary patience, the effort may be abandoned owing to the difficulty of
\nthe beginning. There is no method in this yoga except to concentrate,
\npreferably in the heart, and call the presence and power of the Mother to take
\nup the being and by the workings of her force transform the consciousness; one
\ncan concentrate also in the head or between the eyebrows, but for many this is
\na too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet and the concentration
\nbecomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is a beginning of
\nexperience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be. For
\nthe rest one must not depend on one’s own efforts only, but succeed in
\nestablishing a contact with the Divine and a receptivity to the Mother’s Power
\nand Presence.  <\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 605<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Your mind and
\npsychic being are concentrated on the spiritual aim and open to the Divine \u2013
\nthat is why the Influence comes\u00a0 <\/span>down
\nonly to the head and as far as the heart. But the vital being and nature and
\nphysical consciousness are under the influence of the lower nature. As long as
\nthe vital and physical being are not surrendered or do not on their own account
\ncall for the higher life, the struggle is likely to continue. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Surrender everything, reject all other desires or interests, call on the
\nDivine Shakti to open the vital nature and bring down calm, peace, light,
\nAnanda into all the centres. Aspire, await with faith and patience the result.
\nAll depends on a complete sincerity and an integral consecration and
\naspiration. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The world will trouble you so long as any part of you belongs to the
\nworld. It is only if you belong entirely to the Divine that you can become
\nfree.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The opening
\nis the same for all. It begins with an opening of mind and heart, then of the
\nvital proper \u2013 when it reaches the lower vital and the physical the opening is complete.
\nBut with the opening there must be the full self-giving to what comes down,
\nwhich is the condition of the complete change. It is the last stage that is the
\nreal difficulty and it is there that everybody stumbles about till it is
\novercome.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Always keep
\nin touch with the Divine Force. The best thing for you is to do that simply and
\nallow it to do its own work; wherever necessary, it will take hold of the
\ninferior energies and purify them; at other times it will empty you of them and
\nfill you with itself. But if you let your mind take the lead and discuss and
\ndecide what is to be done, you will lose touch with the Divine Force and the
\nlower energies will begin to act for themselves and all go into confusion and a
\nwrong movement. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 606<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

            1. Offer yourself more and more \u2013 all the consciousness, all that happens
\nin it, all your work and action. <\/p>\n

2. If you have faults and weaknesses, hold them up before the Divine to
\nbe changed or abolished.<\/p>\n

3. Try to do what I told you, concentrate in the heart till you
\nconstantly feel the Presence there.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Openness and,
\nwhenever needed, passivity, but to the highest consciousness, not to anything
\nthat comes. <\/p>\n

Therefore,
\nthere must be a certain quiet vigilance even in the passivity. Otherwise there
\nmay be either wrong movements or inertia.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To give up
\nrestraint would be to give free play to the vital and that would mean leave for
\nall kinds of forces to enter in. So long as there is not the supramental consciousness
\ncontrolling and penetrating everything, in all the being from the overmind
\ndownwards, there is an ambiguous play of forces, and each force, however divine
\nin origin, may be used by the Powers of light or intercepted as it passes
\nthrough the mind and the vital by the Powers of darkness. Vigilance,
\ndiscrimination, control cannot be abandoned till the complete victory has been
\nwon and the consciousness transmuted.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yes;
\nvigilance should not be relaxed. In fact, it is only as the automatic Knowledge
\nand action are established in the being that the constant vigilance ceases to
\nbe needed \u2013 even then it cannot be given up absolutely until there is the full
\nLight.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There are
\nthree main possibilities for the sadhak \u2013 (1) To wait on the Grace and rely on
\nthe Divine. (2) To do everything
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 607<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

himself like
\nthe Adwaitin and the Buddhist. (3) To take the middle path, go forward by
\naspiration and rejection etc. helped by the Force.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Each mind can
\nhave its own way of approaching the supreme Truth and there is an entrance for
\neach as well as a thousand ways for the journey to it. It is not necessary to
\nbelieve in the Grace or to recognise a Godhead different from one’s highest
\nSelf \u2013 there are ways of yoga that do not accept these things. Also, for many
\nno form of yoga is necessary \u2013 they arrive at some realisation by a sort of
\npressure of the mind or the heart or the will breaking the screen between it
\nand what is at once beyond it and its own source. What happens after the breaking
\nof the screen depends on the play of the Truth on the consciousness and the
\nturn of the nature. There is no reason, therefore, why X’s realisation of his
\nbeing should not come in its own way by growth from within, not by the Divine
\nGrace, if his mind objects to that description, but, let us say, by the
\nspontaneous movement of the Self within him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For, as to this \u201cGrace\u201d, we describe it in that way because we feel in
\nthe infinite Spirit or Self-existence a Presence or a Being, a Consciousness
\nthat determines, \u2013 that is what we speak of as the Divine, \u2013 not a separate
\nperson, but the one Being of whom our individual self is a portion or a vessel.
\nBut it is not necessary for everybody to regard it in that way. Supposing it is
\nthe impersonal Self of all only, yet the Upanishad says of this Self and its
\nrealisation: \u201cThis understanding is not to be gained by reasoning nor by
\ntapasya nor by much learning, but whom this Self chooses, to him it reveals its
\nown body\u201d. Well, that is the same thing as what we call the Divine Grace, \u2013 it
\nis an action from above or from within independent of mental causes which
\ndecides its own movement. We can call it the Divine Grace; we can call it the
\nSelf within choosing its own hour and way to manifest to the mental instrument
\non the surface; we can call it the flowering of the inner being or inner nature
\ninto self-realisation and self-knowledge. As something in us approaches it or
\nas it presents itself to us, so the mind sees it. But in reality it is the same thing
\nand the same process of the being in Nature. <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 608<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

I should like
\nto say something about the Divine Grace \u2013 for you seem to think it should be
\nsomething like a Divine Reason acting upon lines not very different from those
\nof human intelligence. But it is not that. Also it is not a universal Divine
\nCompassion either, acting impartially on all who approach it and acceding to
\nall prayers. It does not select the righteous and reject the sinner. The Divine
\nGrace came to aid the persecutor (Saul of Tarsus), it came to St. Augustine the
\nprofligate, to Jagai and Madhai of infamous fame, to Bilwamangal and many
\nothers whose conversion might well scandalise the puritanism of the human moral
\nintelligence; but it can come to the righteous also \u2013 curing them of their
\nself-righteousness and leading to a purer consciousness beyond these things. It
\nis a power that is superior to any rule, even to the Cosmic Law \u2013 for all
\nspiritual seers have distinguished between the Law and Grace. Yet it is not
\nindiscriminate \u2013 only it has a discrimination of its own which sees things and
\npersons and the right times and seasons with another vision than that of the
\nMind or any other normal Power. A state of Grace is prepared in the individual
\noften behind thick veils by means not calculable by the mind and when the state
\nof Grace comes, then the Grace itself acts. There are these three powers: (1)
\nThe Cosmic Law, of Karma or what else; (2) the Divine Compassion acting on as
\nmany as it can reach through the nets of the Law and giving them their chance;
\n(3) the Divine Grace which acts more incalculably but also more irresistibly
\nthan the others. The only question is whether there is something behind all the
\nanomalies of life which can respond to the call and open itself with whatever
\ndifficulty till it is ready for the illumination of the Divine Grace \u2013 and that
\nsomething must be not a mental and vital movement but an inner somewhat which
\ncan well be seen by the inner eye. If it is there and when it becomes active in
\nfront, then the Compassion can act, though the full action of the Grace may
\nstill wait attending the decisive decision or change; for this may be postponed
\nto a future hour, because some portion or element <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 609<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

of the being
\nmay still come between, something that is not yet ready to receive.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But why allow anything to come in the way between you and the Divine, any
\nidea, any incident? When you are in full aspiration and joy, let nothing count,
\nnothing be of any importance except the Divine and your aspiration. If one
\nwants the Divine quickly, absolutely, entirely, that must be the spirit of
\napproach, absolute, all-engrossing, making that the one point with which
\nnothing else must interfere. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What value have mental ideas about the Divine, ideas about what he should
\nbe, how he should act, how he should not act \u2013 they can only come in the way.
\nOnly the Divine himself matters. When your consciousness embraces the Divine,
\nthen you can know what the Divine is, not before. Krishna
\nis Krishna, one does not care what he did or did not do:
\nonly to see him, meet him, feel the Light, the Presence, the Love and Ananda is
\nwhat matters. So it is always for the spiritual aspiration \u2013 it is the law of
\nthe spiritual life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThe ordinary
\naction of the Divine is a constant intervention within the actual law of
\nthings\u201d \u2013 that may or may not be but is not usually called the Divine Grace.
\nThe Divine Grace is something not calculable, not bound by anything the
\nintellect can fix as a condition, v though ordinarily some call, aspiration,
\nintensity of the psychic being can awaken it, yet it acts sometimes without any
\napparent cause even of that kind.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is not
\nindispensable that the Grace should work in a way that the human mind can
\nunderstand, it generally doesn’t. It works in its own \u201cmysterious\u201d way. At
\nfirst usually it works behind the veil, preparing things, not manifesting.
\nAfterwards it may manifest, but the sadhak does not understand very well what
\nis happening; finally,\u00a0 <\/span>when he is
\ncapable of it, he both feels and understands or at least begins to do so. Some
\nfeel and <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 610<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

understand
\nfrom the first or very early; but that is not the ordinary case.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is
\nnothing unintelligible in what I say about strength and Grace. Strength has a
\nvalue for spiritual realisation, but to say that it can be done by strength
\nonly and by no other means is a violent exaggeration. Grace is not an
\ninvention, it is a fact of spiritual experience. Many who would be considered
\nas mere nothings by the wise and strong have attained by Grace; illiterate,
\nwithout mental power or training, without \u201cstrength\u201d of character or will, they
\nhave yet aspired and suddenly or rapidly grown into spiritual realisation,
\nbecause they had faith or because they were sincere. I do not see why these
\nfacts which are facts of spiritual history and of quite ordinary spiritual
\nexperience should be discussed and denied and argued as if they were mere
\nmatters of speculation. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Strength, if it is spiritual, is a power for spiritual realisation; a greater
\npower is sincerity; the greatest power of all is Grace. I have said times
\nwithout number that if a man is sincere, he will go through in spite of long
\ndelay and overwhelming difficulties. I have repeatedly spoken of the Divine
\nGrace. I have referred any number of times to the line of the Gita: <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI will
\ndeliver thee from all sin and evil, do not grieve.\u201d\u00b9<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is a
\nquestion to which no clear-cut answer can be given because it puts two sides
\neach of which is a truth. Without the Grace of the Divine nothing can be done,
\nbut for the full Grace to manifest the sadhak must make himself ready. If
\neverything depends on the Divine intervention, then man is only a puppet and
\nthere is no use of sadhana, and there are no conditions, no law of things \u2013 therefore
\nno universe, but only the Divine rolling things about at his pleasure. No doubt
\nin the last resort all can be said to be the Divine cosmic working, but it is
\nthrough persons, through forces that it works \u2013 under the conditions of Nature.<\/p>\n

  <\/p>\n

\u00b9<\/span>Aham<\/span><\/i> tvām<\/i> sarvapāpebhyo<\/i> mokşayişāmi<\/i> mā<\/i>
\nśucah<\/i>.<\/span> <\/p>\n

Page \u2013 611<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Special
\nintervention there can be and is, but all cannot be special intervention. As
\nfor the experience stated it was probably in the vital plane and such suddennesses
\nand vividnesses of experience are characteristic of the vital \u2013 but they are
\nnot lasting, they only prepare. It is when one has got into contact with what
\nis beyond mind and vital and body and risen there that the great lasting
\nfundamental realisations usually come.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yoga is an
\nendeavour, a tapasya \u2013 it can cease to be so only when one surrenders sincerely
\nto a Higher Action and keeps the surrender and makes it complete. It is not a
\nfantasia devoid of all reason and coherence or a mere miracle. It has its laws
\nand conditions and I do not see how you can demand of the Divine to do
\neverything by a violent miracle.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have never said that this yoga is a safe one \u2013 no yoga is. Each has its
\ndangers as has every great attempt in human life. But it can be carried through
\nif one has a central sincerity and a fidelity to the Divine. These are the two
\nnecessary conditions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What
\nBrahmananda says about tapasya is, of course, true. If one is not prepared for
\nlabour and tapasya, control of the mind and vital, one cannot demand big
\nspiritual gains \u2013 for the mind and vital will always find tricks and excuses
\nfor prolonging their own reign, imposing their likes and dislikes and staving
\noff the day when they will have to become obedient instruments and open
\nchannels of the soul and spirit. Grace may sometimes bring undeserved or
\napparently undeserved fruits, but one can’t demand Grace as a right and
\nprivilege \u2013 for then it would not be Grace. As you have seen, one can’t claim
\nthat one has only to shout and the answer must come. Besides, I have always
\nseen that there has been really a long unobserved preparation before the Grace
\nintervenes, and also, after it has intervened, one has still to put in a good
\ndeal of work to keep and develop what one has got \u2013 as it is in all other
\nthings until there is the complete <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 612<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

siddhi. Then
\nof course labour finishes and one is in assured possession. So tapasya of one
\nkind or another is not avoidable. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You are right again about the imaginary obstacles…. It is why we always
\nexpress depreciation of mental constructions and vital formations \u2013 because
\nthey are the defence-works mind and vital throw up against their capture by the
\nDivine. However, the first thing is to become conscious of all that as you have
\nnow become, \u2013 the secret is to be firm in knocking it all down and making a tabula<\/i> rasa<\/i>, a foundation of calm, peace, happy openness for the true
\nbuilding.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The best
\npossible way is to allow the Divine Grace to work in you, never to oppose it, never
\nto be ungrateful and turn against it \u2013 but to follow it always to the goal of
\nLight and Peace and unity and Ananda.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Few are those
\nfrom whom the Grace withdraws, but many are those who withdraw from the Grace.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A surrender
\nby any means is good, but obviously the Impersonal is not enough, for surrender
\nto that may be limited in result to the inner experience without any
\ntransformation of the outer nature.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yes,
\nsurrender to the impersonal (formless) Divine would leave parts of the being
\nsubject to gunas and ego \u2013 because the static parts would be free in
\nformlessness but the active nature would be still in the play of the gunas.
\nMany think they are free from ego because they get the sense of the formless
\nexistence. They do not see that egoistic elements remain in their action just
\nas before. <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 613<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

You speak of
\nthe Impersonal as if it were a Person. The Impersonal is not He, it is It. How
\ncan an It guide or help? The Impersonal Brahman is inactive, aloof, indifferent,
\nnot concerned with what happens in the universe. Buddha’s Permanent is the
\nsame. Whatever impersonal Truth or Light there is, you have to find it, use it,
\ndo what you can with it. It does not trouble itself to hunt after you. It is
\nthe Buddhist idea that you must do everything for yourself.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Surrender to
\nthe Guru is said to be surrender beyond all surrenders because through it you
\nsurrender not only to the impersonal, but to the personal, not only to the
\nDivine in self but to the Divine outside you; you get a chance for the
\nsurpassing of the ego not only by retreat into the self where ego does not
\nexist, but in the personal nature where it is the ruler. It is the sign of the
\nwill to complete surrender to the total Divine, samagram<\/i> mām<\/i>… mānuşīm<\/i> tanum<\/i> āśritam<\/i>. Of course it must be a genuine spiritual
\nsurrender for all this to be true.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Guru
\nshould be accepted in all ways \u2013 transcendent, impersonal, personal.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Guru is
\nthe Guide in the yoga. When the Divine is accepted as the Guide, He is accepted
\nas the Guru.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The relation
\nof Guru and disciple is only one of many relations which one can have with the
\nDivine, and in this yoga which aims at a supramental realisation, it is not
\nusual to give it this name; rather, the Divine is regarded as the Source, the
\nliving Sun of Light and Knowledge and Consciousness and spiritual realisation,
\nand all that one receives is felt as coming from there and <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 614<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

the whole
\nbeing remoulded by the Divine Hand. This is a greater and more intimate
\nrelation than that of the human Guru and disciple, which is more of a limited
\nmental ideal. Nevertheless, if the mind still needs the more familiar mental
\nconception, it can be kept so long as it is needed; only do not let the soul be
\nbound by it and do not let it limit the inflow of other relations with the
\nDivine and larger forms of experience.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is not
\nusual to use the word Guru in the supramental yoga, here everything comes from
\nthe Divine himself. But if anybody wants it he can use it for the time being.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No, surrender
\nto the Divine and surrender to the Guru are not the same thing. In surrendering
\nto the Guru, it is to the Divine in him that one surrenders \u2013 if it were only
\nto a human entity, it would be ineffective. But it is the consciousness of the
\nDivine Presence that makes the Guru a real Guru, so that even if the disciple
\nsurrenders to him thinking of the human being to whom he surrenders, that Presence
\nwill still make it effective.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All true
\nGurus are the same, the one Guru, because all are the one Divine. That is a
\nfundamental and universal truth. But there is also a truth of difference; the
\nDivine dwells in different personalities with different minds, teachings,
\ninfluences so that He may lead different disciples with their special need,
\ncharacter, destiny by different ways to the realisation. Because all Gurus are
\nthe same Divine, it does not follow that the disciple does well if he leaves
\nthe one meant for him to follow another. Fidelity to the Guru is demanded of
\nevery disciple, according to the Indian tradition. \u201cAll are the same\u201d is a
\nspiritual truth, but you cannot convert it indiscriminately into action; you
\ncannot deal with all persons in the same way because they are the one Brahman:
\nif <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 615<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

one did, the
\nresult pragmatically would be an awful mess. It is a rigid mental logic that
\nmakes the difficulty but in spiritual matters mental logic easily blunders; intuition,
\nfaith, a plastic spiritual reason are here the only guides. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As for faith, faith in the spiritual sense is not a mental belief which
\ncan waver and change. It can wear that form in the mind, but that belief is not
\nthe faith itself, it is only its external form. Just as the body, the external
\nform, can change but the spirit remains the same, so it is here. Faith is a
\ncertitude in the soul which does not depend on reasoning, on this or that
\nmental idea, on circumstances, on this or that passing condition of the mind or
\nthe vital or the body. It may be hidden, eclipsed, may even seem to be
\nquenched, but it reappears again after the storm or the eclipse; it is seen
\nburning still in the soul when one has thought that it was extinguished for
\never. The mind may be a shifting sea of doubts and yet that faith may be there
\nwithin and, if so, it will keep even the doubt-racked mind in the way so that
\nit goes on in spite of itself towards its destined goal. Faith is a spiritual
\ncertitude of the spiritual, the divine, the soul’s ideal, something that clings
\nto that even when it is not fulfilled in life, even when the immediate facts or
\nthe persistent circumstances seem to deny it. This is a common experience in
\nthe life of the human being; if it were not so, man would be the plaything of a
\nchanging mind or a sport of circumstances.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It does not
\nstrike me that X’s letters are admirable as an aper\u00e7u<\/i> of current thoughts and general tendencies; it was rather
\nhis power to withdraw so completely from these thoughts and tendencies and look
\nfrom a (for him) new and abiding source of knowledge that impressed me as
\nadmirable. If he had remained interested and in touch with these current human
\nmovements, I don’t suppose he would have done better with them than Romain
\nRolland or another. But he has got to the yoga-view of them, the summit-view,
\nand it is the readiness with which he has been able to do it that struck me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I would explain his progressing so far not entirely by his own
\nsuperiority in the sense of a general fitness for yoga as by the <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 616<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

quickness and
\ncompleteness with which he has taken inwardly the attitude of the Bhakta and
\nthe disciple. That is a rare achievement for a modern mind, be he European or
\n\u201ceducated\u201d Indian; for the modern mind is analytic, dubitative, instinctively
\n\u201cindependent\u201d even when it wants to be otherwise; it holds itself back and
\nhesitates in front of the Light and Influence that comes to it; it does not
\nplunge into it with a simple directness, crying, \u201cHere I am, ready to throw
\nfrom me all that was myself or seemed to be, if so I can enter into Thee;
\nremake my consciousness into the Truth in Thy way, the way of the Divine.\u201d
\nThere is something in us that is ready for it, but there is this element that
\nintervenes and makes a curtain of non-receptivity; I know by my own experience
\nwith myself and others how long it can make a road that could never, perhaps
\nfor us who seek the entire truth, have been short and easy, but still, we might
\nhave spared many wanderings and stand-stills and recoils and detours. All the
\nmore I admire the ease with which X seems to have surmounted this formidable
\nobstacle. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I do not know if his Guru falls short in any respect, but with the
\nattitude he has taken, the deficiencies, if any, do not matter. It is not the
\nhuman defects of the Guru that can stand in the way when there is the psychic
\nopening, confidence and surrender. The Guru is the channel or the
\nrepresentative or the manifestation of the Divine, according to the measure of
\nhis personality or his attainment; but whatever he is, it is to the Divine that
\none opens in opening to him; and if something is determined by the power of the
\nchannel, more is determined by the inherent and intrinsic attitude of the
\nreceiving consciousness, an element that comes out in the surface mind as
\nsimple trust or direct unconditional self-giving, and once that is there, the
\nessential things can be gained even from one who seems to others than the
\ndisciple an inferior spiritual source, and the rest will grow up in the sadhak
\nof itself by the Grace of the Divine, even if the human being in the Guru
\ncannot give it. It is this that X appears to have done perhaps from the first;
\nbut in most nowadays this attitude seems to come with difficulty after much
\nhesitation and delay and trouble. In my own case I owe the first decisive turn
\nof my inner life to one who was infinitely inferior to me in intellect, <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 617<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

education and
\ncapacity and by no means spiritually perfect or supreme; but, having seen a
\nPower behind him and decided to turn there for help, I gave myself entirely
\ninto his hands and followed with an automatic passivity the guidance. He
\nhimself was astonished and said to others that he had never met anyone before
\nwho could surrender himself so absolutely and without reserve or question to
\nthe guidance of the helper. The result was a series of transmuting experiences
\nof such a radical character that he was unable to follow and had to tell me to
\ngive myself up in future to the Guide within with the same completeness of
\nsurrender as I had shown to the human channel. I give this example to show how
\nthese things work; it is not in the calculated way the human reason wants to
\nlay down, but by a more mysterious and greater law.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One can have
\na Guru inferior in spiritual capacity (to oneself or to other Gurus) carrying
\nin him many human imperfections and yet, if you have the faith, the bhakti, the
\nright spiritual stuff, you can contact the Divine through him, attain to
\nspiritual experiences, to spiritual realisation, even before the Guru himself.
\nMark the \u201cIf\u201d, for that proviso is necessary; it is not every disciple who can
\ndo that with every Guru. From a humbug you can acquire nothing but his
\nhumbuggery. The Guru must have something in him which makes the contact with
\nthe Divine possible, something which works even if he is not in his outer mind
\nquite conscious of its action. If there is nothing at all spiritual in him, he
\nis not a Guru, only a pseudo. Undoubtedly, there can be considerable differences
\nof spiritual realisation between one Guru and another; but much depends on the
\ninner relation between Guru and śişya<\/i>.
\nOne can go to a very great spiritual man and get nothing or only a little from
\nhim; one can go to a man of less spiritual capacity and get all he has to give
\n\u2013 and more. The causes of this disparity are various and subtle; I need not
\nexpand on them here. It differs with each man. I believe the Guru is always
\nready to give what can be given, if the disciple can receive, or it may be, when
\nhe is ready to receive. If he refuses to receive or behaves inwardly or
\noutwardly in such a <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 618<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

way as to
\nmake reception impossible or if he is not sincere or takes up the wrong
\nattitude, then things become difficult. But if one is sincere and faithful and
\nhas the right attitude and if the Guru is a true Guru, then, after whatever
\ntime, it will come.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ramakrishna
\nhad the siddhi himself before he began giving to others \u2013 so had Buddha. I
\ndon’t know about the others. By perfection of course is meant siddhi in one’s
\nown path \u2013 realisation. Ramakrishna always put that as a rule that one should
\nnot become a teacher to others until one has the full authority.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The action of
\nthe Force does not exclude tapasya, concentration and the need of sadhana. Its
\naction rather comes as an answer or a help to these things. It is true that it
\nsometimes acts without them; it very often makes a response in those who have
\nnot prepared themselves and do not seem to be ready. But it does not always or usually
\nact like that, nor is it a sort of magic that acts in the void or without any
\nprocess. Nor is it a machine that acts in the same way on everybody or in all
\nconditions and circumstances; it is not a physical but a spiritual Force and
\nits action cannot be reduced to rules. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

About the limitation of the power of the Guru to that of a teacher who
\nshows the way but cannot help or guide, that is the conception of certain paths
\nof yoga such as the pure Adwaitin and the Buddhist which say that you must rely
\nupon yourself and that no one can help you; but even the pure Adwaitin does in
\nfact rely upon the Guru and the chief mantra of Buddhism insists on śaraņam<\/i> to Buddha. For other
\npaths of sadhana, especially those which, like the Gita, accept the reality of
\nthe individual soul as an \u201ceternal portion\u201d of the Divine or which believe that
\nBhagavan and the bhakta are both real, the help of the Guru has always been
\nrelied upon as an indispensable aid.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I don’t understand the objection to the validity of Vivekananda’s
\nexperience: it was exactly the realisation which is <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 619<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

described in
\nthe Upanishads as a supreme experience of the Self. It is not a fact that an
\nexperience gained in samadhi cannot be prolonged into the waking state.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yes, it is a defect
\nin the vital, a lack of will to discipline. One has to learn from the master
\nand act according to his instructions because the master knows the subject and
\nhow it is to be learnt \u2013 just as in spiritual things one has to follow a Guru
\nwho has the knowledge and knows the way. If one learns all by oneself, the
\nchances are that one will learn all wrong. What is the use of a freedom to
\nlearn wrongly? Of course, if the pupil is more intelligent than the master, he
\nwill learn more than the master, just as a great spiritual capacity may arrive
\nat realisation which the Guru has not \u2013 but even so the control and discipline
\nin the early stages is indispensable.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Up to now no
\nliberated man has objected to the Guruvada; it is usually only people who live
\nin the mind or vital and have the pride of the mind and the arrogance of the
\nvital that find it below their dignity to recognise a Guru.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All that is
\npopular yoga. The Guru’s touch or grace may open something, but the
\ndifficulties have always to be worked out still. What is true is that if there
\nis complete surrender which implies the prominence of the psychic, these
\ndifficulties are no longer felt as a binder or obstacle but only as superficial
\nimperfections which the working of the grace will remove.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think this
\nsaying\u00b9<\/span> of Ramakrishna
\nexpresses a certain <\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b9<\/span>\u201cWith the Guru’s grace all
\ndifficulties can disappear in a flash even as agelong darkness does the moment
\nyou strike a match.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 620<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

characteristic
\nhappening in sadhana and cannot be interpreted in a general and absolute sense,
\nfor in that sense it is hard for it to be true. All difficulties disappearing
\nin a minute? Well, Vivekananda had the grace of Ramakrishna from the beginning,
\nbut I think his difficulty of doubt lasted for some time and to the end of his
\nlife the difficulty of the control of his anger was there \u2013 making him say that
\nall that was good in him was his Guru’s gift, but these things (anger etc.)
\nwere his own property. But what could be true is that the central difficulty
\nmay disappear by a certain touch between the Guru and the disciple. But what is
\nmeant by the krpā<\/i>? If it is the
\ngeneral compassion and grace of the Guru, that, one would think, is always
\nthere on the disciple; his acceptance itself is an act of grace and the help is
\nthere for the disciple to receive. But the touch of grace, divine grace, coming
\ndirectly or through the Guru is a special phenomenon\u00a0 <\/span>having two sides to it, \u2013 the grace of the
\nGuru or the Divine, in fact both together, on one side and a \u201cstate of grace\u201d
\nin the disciple on the other. The \u201cstate of grace\u201d is often prepared by a long
\ntapasya or purification in which nothing decisive seems to happen, only touches
\nor glimpses or passing experiences at the most, and it comes suddenly without
\nwarning. If this is what is spoken of in Ramakrishna’s saying, then it is true
\nthat when it comes, the fundamental difficulties can in a moment and generally
\ndo disappear. Or, at the very least, something happens which makes the rest of
\nthe sadhana \u2013 however long it may take \u2013 sure and secure. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This decisive touch comes most easily to the \u201cbaby cat\u201d people, those who
\nhave at some point between the psychic and the emotional vital a quick and
\ndecisive movement of surrender to the Guru or the Divine. I have seen that when
\nthat is there and there is the conscious central dependence compelling the mind
\nalso and the rest of the vital, then the fundamental difficulty disappears. If
\nothers remain they are not felt as difficulties, but simply as things that have
\njust to be done and need cause no worry. Sometimes no tapasya is necessary \u2013
\none just refers things to the Power that one feels guiding or doing the sadhana
\nand assents to its action, rejecting all that is contrary to it, and the Power
\nremoves what has to be removed or changes what has to <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 621<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

be changed,
\nquickly or slowly \u2013 but the quickness or slowness does not seem to matter since
\none is sure that it will be done. If tapasya is necessary, it is done with so
\nmuch feeling of a strong support that there is nothing hard or austere in the
\ntapasya. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For the others, the \u201cbaby monkey\u201d type or those who are still more
\nindependent, following their own ideas, doing their own sadhana, asking only
\nfor some instruction or help, the grace of the Guru is there, but it acts
\naccording to the nature of the sadhak and waits upon his effort to a greater or
\nless degree; it helps, succours in difficulty, saves in the time of danger, but
\nthe disciple is not always, is perhaps hardly at all aware of what is being
\ndone as he is absorbed in himself and his endeavour. In such cases the decisive
\npsychological movement, the touch that makes all clear, may take longer to
\ncome. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But with all the krpā<\/i> is
\nthere working in one way or another and it can only abandon the disciple if the
\ndisciple himself abandons or rejects it \u2013 by decisive and definitive revolt, by
\nrejection of the Guru, by cutting the painter and declaring his independence,
\nor by an act or course of betrayal that severs him from his own psychic being.
\nEven then, except perhaps in the last case if it goes to an extreme, a return
\nto grace is not impossible. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That is my own knowledge and experience of the matter. But as to what lay
\nbehind Ramakrishna’s saying and whether he himself meant it to be a general and
\nabsolute statement \u2013 I do not pronounce.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It has always
\nbeen said that to take disciples means to take upon yourself the difficulties
\nof the disciples as well as your own. Of course, if the Guru does not identify
\nhimself with the disciple, does not take him into his own consciousness, keeps
\nhim outside and only gives him upādeśa<\/i>
\nleaving him to do the rest himself, then the chance of these effects is much
\ndiminished; made practically nil.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When one
\ntakes sincerely to surrender, nothing must be <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 622<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

concealed
\nthat is of any importance for the life of the sadhana. Confession helps to
\npurge the consciousness of hampering elements and it clears the inner air and
\nmakes for a closer and more intimate and effective relation between the Guru
\nand the disciple.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nVI<\/b> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is so with
\nall things in the path of sadhana \u2013 one must persist however long it takes, so
\nonly one can achieve.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The power
\nneeded in yoga is the power to go through effort, difficulty or trouble without
\ngetting fatigued, depressed, discouraged or impatient and without breaking off
\nthe effort or giving up one’s aim or resolution.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Whatever
\nmethod is used, persistence and perseverance are essential. For whatever method
\nis used, the complexity of the natural resistance will be there to combat it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A yoga like
\nthis needs patience, because it means a change both of the radical motives and
\nof each part and detail of the nature. It will not do to say \u2013 \u201cYesterday I
\ndetermined to give myself entirely to the Mother, and look it is not done, on
\nthe contrary, all the old opposite things turn up once more.\u201d Of course, when
\nyou come to the point where you make a resolution of that kind, immediately all
\nthat stands in the way does rise up \u2013 it invariably happens. The thing to be
\ndone is to stand back, observe and reject, not to allow these things to get
\nhold of you, to keep your central will separate from them and call in the
\nMother’s Force to meet them; if one does get involved, as often happens, then
\nto get disinvolved as soon as possible and go forward again. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 623<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

That is what
\neverybody, every yoga does \u2013 to be depressed because one cannot do everything
\nin a rush is quite contrary to the truth of the matter. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The steadiness you have gained is not a personal virtue but depends on
\nyour keeping the contact with the Mother \u2013 for it is her Force that is behind
\nit and behind all the progress you can make. Learn to rely on that Force, to
\nopen to it more completely and to seek spiritual progress even not for your own
\nsake but for the sake of the Divine \u2013 then you will go more smoothly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is certain
\nthat an ardent aspiration for the Divine helps to progress, but patience is also
\nneeded. For it is a very big change that has to be made and, although there can
\nbe moments of great rapidity, it is never all the time like that. Old things
\ntry to stick as much as possible; the new that come have to develop and the
\nconsciousness takes time to assimilate them and make them normal to the nature.\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Keep this firm faith in your mind that the thing needed is being done and
\nwill be done fully. There can be no doubt about that.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is true
\nthat a great patience and steadfastness is needed. Be then firm and patient and
\nfixed on the aims of the sadhana, but not over-eager to have them at once. A
\nwork has to be done in you and is being done; help it to be done by keeping an
\nattitude of firm faith and confidence. Doubts rise in all, they are natural to
\nthe human physical mind \u2013 reject them. Impatience and over-eagerness for the
\nresult at once are natural to the human vital; it is by firm confidence in the
\nMother that they will disappear. The love, the belief in her as the Divine to
\nwhom your life is given, \u2013 oppose with that every contrary feeling and then
\nthose contrary feelings will after a time no longer be able to come to you. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 624<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Impatience is
\nalways a mistake, it does not help but hinders. A quiet happy faith and confidence
\nis the best foundation for sadhana; for the rest a constant opening wide of
\noneself to receive with an aspiration which may be intense, but must always be
\ncalm and steady. Full yogic realisation does not come all at once, it comes
\nafter a long preparation of the Adhar which may take a long time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There can be
\nno doubt about the Divine Grace. It is perfectly true also that if a man is
\nsincere, he will reach the Divine. But it does not follow that he will reach
\nimmediately, easily and without delay. Your error is there, to fix for God a
\nterm, five years, six years, and doubt because the effect is not yet there. A
\nman may be centrally sincere and yet there may be many things that have to be
\nchanged in him before realisation can begin. His sincerity must enable him to
\npersevere always \u2013 for it is a longing for the Divine that nothing can quench,
\nneither delay nor disappointment nor difficulty nor anything else.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI will try
\nagain\u201d is not sufficient; what is needed is to try always \u2013 steadily, with a
\nheart free from despondency, as the Gita says, anirviņņacetasā<\/i>. You speak of five and a half years
\nas if it were a tremendous time for such an object, but a yogi who is able in
\nthat time to change radically his nature and get the concrete decisive
\nexperience of the Divine would have to be considered as one of the rare
\ngallopers of the spiritual Way. Nobody has ever said that the spiritual change
\nwas an easy thing; all spiritual seekers will say that it is difficult but
\nsupremely worth doing. If one’s desire for the Divine has become the master
\ndesire, then surely one can give one’s whole life to it without repining and
\nnot grudge the time, difficulty or labour. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Again, you speak of your experiences as vague and dream-like. In the
\nfirst place the scorn of small experiences in the inner life is no part of
\nwisdom, reason or common sense. It is in the beginning of the sadhana and for a
\nlong time, the small <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 625<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

experiences
\nthat come on each other and, if given their full value, prepare the field,
\nbuild up a preparatory consciousness and one day break open the walls to big
\nexperiences. But if you despise them with the ambitious idea that you must have
\neither the big experiences or nothing, it is not surprising that they come once
\nin a blue moon and cannot do their work. Moreover, all your experiences were
\nnot small. There were some like the stilling descent of a Power in the body \u2013
\nwhat you used to call numbness \u2013 which anyone with spiritual knowledge would
\nhave recognised as a first strong step towards the opening of the consciousness
\nto the higher Peace and Light. But it was not in the line of your expectations
\nand you gave it no special value. As for vague and dream-like, you feel it so
\nbecause you are looking at them and at everything that happens in you from the
\nstandpoint of the outward physical mind and intellect which can take only
\nphysical things as real and important and vivid and to it inward phenomena are something
\nunreal, vague and truthless. The spiritual experience does not even despise
\ndreams and visions; it is known to it that many of these things are not dreams
\nat all but experiences on an inner plane and if the experiences of the inner
\nplanes which lead to the opening of the inner self into the outer so as to
\ninfluence and change it are not accepted, the experiences of the subtle
\nconsciousness and the trance consciousness, how is the waking consciousness to
\nexpand out of the narrow prison of the body and body-mind and the senses? For,
\nto the physical mind untouched by the inner awakened consciousness, even the
\nexperience of the cosmic consciousness or the Eternal Self might very well seem
\nmerely subjective and unconvincing. It would think, \u201cCurious, no doubt, rather
\ninteresting, but very subjective, don’t you think? Hallucinations, yes!\u201d The
\nfirst business of the spiritual seeker is to get away from the outward mind’s
\noutlook and to look at inward phenomena with an inward mind to which they soon
\nbecome powerful and stimulating realities. If one does that, then one begins to
\nsee that there is here a wide field of truth and knowledge, in which one can
\nmove from discovery to discovery to reach the supreme discovery of all. But the
\nouter physical mind, if it has any ideas about the Divine and spirituality at
\nall, has only hasty a priori<\/i> ideas
\nmiles away from the <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage-\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>626<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

solid ground
\nof inner truth and experience. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have not left myself time to deal with other matters at any length. You
\nspeak of the Divine’s stern demands and hard conditions \u2013 but what severe
\ndemands and iron conditions you are laying on the Divine! You practically say
\nto him, \u201cI will doubt and deny you at every step, but you must fill me with
\nyour unmistakable Presence; I will be full of gloom and despair whenever I
\nthink of you or the yoga, but you must flood my gloom with your rapturous
\nirresistible Ananda; I will meet you only with my outer physical mind and
\nconsciousness, but you must give me in that the Power that will transform rapidly
\nmy whole nature.\u201d Well, I don’t say that the Divine won’t or can’t do it, but
\nif such a miracle is to be worked, you must give him some time and just a
\nmillionth part of a chance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Divine
\nmay be difficult, but his difficulties can be overcome if one keeps at him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The sadhana
\nis a difficult one and time should not be grudged; it is only in the last
\nstages that a very great and constant rapidity of progress can be confidently
\nexpected.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As for Shakti, the descent of Shakti before the vital is pure and
\nsurrendered, has its dangers. It is better for him to pray for purification,
\nknowledge, intensity of the heart’s aspiration and as much working of the Power
\nas he can bear and assimilate.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Always keep within
\nand do things without involving yourself in them, then nothing adverse will
\nhappen or, if it does, no serious reaction will come. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The idea of leaving for any reason is, of course, absurd and out of the
\nquestion. Eight years is a very short time for transformation. Most people
\nspend as much as that or more to get conscious of their defects and acquire the
\nserious will to <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 627<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

change \u2013 and
\nafter that it takes a long time to get the will turned into full and final
\naccomplishment. Each time one stumbles, one has to get back into the right
\nfooting and go on with fresh resolution; by doing that the full change comes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What I want
\nof you besides aspiring for faith? Well, just a little thoroughness and
\npersistence in the method! Don’t aspire for two days and then go into the
\ndumps, evolving a gospel of earthquake and Schopenhauer plus the ass and all
\nthe rest of it. Give the Divine a full sporting chance. When he lights
\nsomething in you or is preparing a light, don’t come in with a wet blanket of
\ndespondency and throw it on the poor flame. You will say, \u201cIt is a mere candle
\nthat is lit \u2013 nothing at all!\u201d But in these matters, when the darkness of human
\nmind and life and body has to be dissipated, a candle is always a beginning \u2013 a
\nlamp can follow and afterwards a sun; but the beginning must be allowed to have
\na sequel and not get cut off from its natural sequelae by chunks of sadness and
\ndoubt and despair. At the beginning, and for a long time, the experiences do
\nusually come in little quanta with empty spaces between \u2013 but, if allowed its
\nway, the spaces will diminish, and the quantum theory give way to the Newtonean
\ncontinuity of the spirit. But you have never yet given it a real chance. The
\nempty spaces have been peopled with doubts and denials and so the quanta have
\nbecome rare, the beginning remains a beginning. Other difficulties you have
\nfaced and rejected, but this difficulty you have dandled too much for a long
\ntime and it has become strong \u2013 it must be dealt with by a persevering effort.
\nI do not say that all doubts must disappear before anything comes \u2013 that would
\nbe to make sadhana impossible, for doubt is the mind’s persistent assailant.
\nAll I say is, don’t allow the assailant to become a companion, don’t give him
\nthe open door and the fireside seat. Above all, don’t drive away the incoming
\nDivine with that dispiriting wet blanket of sadness and despair! <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To put it more soberly \u2013 accept once and for all that this thing has to
\nbe done, that it is the only thing left for yourself or the earth. Outside are
\nearthquakes and Hitlers and a <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 628<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

collapsing
\ncivilisation and, generally speaking, the ass and the flood. All the more
\nreason to tend towards the one thing to be done, the thing you have been sent
\nto aid in getting done. It is difficult and the way long and the encouragement
\ngiven meagre? What then? Why should you expect so great a thing to be easy or
\nthat there must be either a swift success or none? The difficulties have to be
\nfaced and the more cheerfully they are faced, the sooner they will be overcome.
\nThe one thing to do is to keep the mantra of success, the determination of
\nvictory, the fixed resolve, \u201cHave it I must and have it I will.\u201d Impossible?
\nThere is no such thing as impossibility \u2013 there are difficulties and things of longue<\/i> haleine<\/i>, but no impossibles. What one is determined fixedly to do
\nwill get done now or later \u2013 it becomes possible. Drive out dark despair and go
\nbravely on with your yoga. As the darkness disappears, the inner doors will
\nopen.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Whether by
\ntapasya or surrender does not matter, the one thing is to be firm in setting
\none’s face to the goal. Once one has set one’s feet on the way, how can one
\ndraw back from it to something inferior? If one keeps firm, falls do not
\nmatter, one rises up again and goes forward. If one is firm towards the goal,
\nthere can be on the way to the Divine no eventual failure. And if there is
\nsomething within you that drives as surely there is, falterings or falls or
\nfailure of faith make no eventual difference. One has to go on till the
\nstruggle is over and there is the straight and open and thornless way before
\nus.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You have only
\nto remain quiet and firm in your following of the path and your will to go to
\nthe end. If you do that circumstances will in the end be obliged to shape
\nthemselves to your will, because it will be the Divine Will in you. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 629<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

There are
\nalways difficulties and a hampered progress in the early stages and a delay in
\nthe opening of the inner doors until the being is ready. If you feel whenever
\nyou meditate the quiescence and the flashes of the inner Light and if the
\ninward urge is growing so strong that the external hold is decreasing and the
\nvital disturbances are losing their force, that is already a great progress.
\nThe road of yoga is long, every inch of ground has to be won against much
\nresistance and no quality is more needed by the sadhak than patience and
\nsingle-minded perseverance with a faith that remains firm through all
\ndifficulties, delays and apparent failures.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One who fears
\nmonotony and wants something new would not be able to do yoga or at least this
\nyoga which needs an inexhaustible perseverance and patience. The fear of death
\nshows a vital weakness which is also contrary to a capacity for yoga. Equally,
\none who is under the domination of his passions, would find the yoga difficult
\nand, unless supported by a true inner call and a sincere and strong aspiration
\nfor the spiritual consciousness and union with the Divine, might very easily
\nfall fatally and his effort come to nothing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Determination
\nis needed and a firm patience, not to be discouraged by this or that failure.
\nIt is a change in the habit of the physical nature and that needs a long
\npatient work of detail.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Your attitude
\ntowards the change needed and new life is the right one. A quiet vigilant but
\nundistressed persistence is the best way to get it done. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For the intimacy within to be re-established, the quietude must deepen so
\nthat the psychic may come out in the physical as it had done in the higher
\nparts. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 630<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

One who has
\nnot the courage to face patiently and firmly life and its difficulties will
\nnever be able to go through the still greater inner difficulties of the
\nsadhana. The very first lesson in this yoga is to face life and its trials with
\na quiet mind, a firm courage and an entire reliance on the Divine Shakti.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Remain firm
\nand turned in the one direction \u2013 towards the Mother. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 631<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SECTION THREE  Basic Requisites of the Path                 THE goal of yoga is always hard to reach, but this one is more difficult than…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-23-letters-on-yoga-volume-23","wpcat-24-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}