{"id":2217,"date":"2013-07-13T01:40:11","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2217"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:40:11","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:40:11","slug":"67-chapter-xiii-the-action-of-equality-vol-23-24-the-synthesis-of-yoga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/23-24-the-synthesis-of-yoga\/67-chapter-xiii-the-action-of-equality-vol-23-24-the-synthesis-of-yoga","title":{"rendered":"-67_Chapter XIII The Action of Equality.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tChapter XIII
\n\t<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Action of Equality
\n\t<\/font><\/b> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tT<\/font>HE DISTINCTIONS<\/b> that have already been made, will
\nhave shown in sufficiency what is meant by the status of equality. It is not mere quiescence and indifference,
\nnot a withdrawal from experience, but a superiority to the present reactions of the mind and life. It is the spiritual way
\nof replying to life or rather of embracing it and compelling it to become a perfect form of action of the self and spirit. It
\nis the first secret of the soul’s mastery of existence. When we have it in perfection, we are admitted to the very ground of the
\ndivine spiritual nature. The mental being in the body tries to compel and conquer life, but is at every turn compelled by it,
\nbecause it submits to the desire reactions of the vital self. To be equal, not to be overborne by any stress of desire, is the first
\ncondition of real mastery, self-empire is its basis. But a mere mental equality, however great it may be, is hampered by the
\ntendency of quiescence. It has to preserve itself from desire by self-limitation in the will and action. It is only the spirit which
\nis capable of sublime undisturbed rapidities of will as well as an illimitable patience, equally just in a slow and deliberate or a
\nswift and violent, equally secure in a safely lined and limited or a vast and enormous action. It can accept the smallest work in the
\nnarrowest circle of cosmos, but it can work too upon the whirl of chaos with an understanding and creative force; and these things
\nit can do because by its detached and yet intimate acceptance it carries into both an infinite calm, knowledge, will and power.
\nIt has that detachment because it is above all the happenings, forms, ideas and movements it embraces in its scope; and it has
\nthat intimate acceptance because it is yet one with all things. If 
\nwe have not this free unity, ekatvam anupaś<\/font>yatah<\/font><\/i>, we have not
\nthe full equality of the spirit. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe first business of the sadhaka is to see whether he has
\n  <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\tthe perfect equality, how far he has gone in this direction or else
\nwhere is the flaw, and to exercise steadily his will on his nature or invite the will of the Purusha to get rid of the defect and its
\ncauses. There are four things that he must have; first, equality in 
\nthe most concrete practical sense of the word, samatā<\/font><\/i>, freedom from mental, vital, physical preferences, an even acceptance of
\nall God’s workings within and around him; secondly, a firm 
\npeace and absence of all disturbance and trouble,
\n\t\t\tśā<\/font>nti<\/i>; thirdly, a positive inner spiritual happiness and spiritual ease of the natural being which nothing can lessen, sukham<\/i>; fourthly, a clear joy and laughter of the soul embracing life and existence. To be
\nequal is to be infinite and universal, not to limit oneself, not to bind oneself down to this or that form of the mind and life and
\nits partial preferences and desires. But since man in his present normal nature lives by his mental and vital formations, not in
\nthe freedom of his spirit, attachment to them and the desires and preferences they involve is also his normal condition. To
\naccept them is at first inevitable, to get beyond them exceedingly difficult and not, perhaps, altogether possible so long as we are
\ncompelled to use the mind as the chief instrument of our action. The first necessity therefore is to take at least the sting out of
\nthem, to deprive them, even when they persist, of their greater insistence, their present egoism, their more violent claim on our
\nnature. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe test that we have done this is the presence of an undisturbed calm in the mind and spirit. The sadhaka must be on the watch as the witnessing and willing Purusha behind or, better,
\nas soon as he can manage it, above the mind, and repel even the least indices or incidence of trouble, anxiety, grief, revolt,
\ndisturbance in his mind. If these things come, he must at once detect their source, the defect which they indicate, the fault of
\negoistic claim, vital desire, emotion or idea from which they start and this he must discourage by his will, his spiritualised
\nintelligence, his soul unity with the Master of his being. On no account must he admit any excuse for them, however natural,
\nrighteous in seeming or plausible, or any inner or outer justification. If it is the prana
\n\t\t\twhich is troubled and clamorous, he<\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\tmust separate himself from the troubled prana, keep seated his
\nhigher nature in the buddhi and by the buddhi school and reject the claim of the desire-soul in him; and so too if it is the heart
\nof emotion that makes the clamour and the disturbance. If on the other hand it is the will and intelligence itself that is at fault,
\nthen the trouble is more difficult to command, because then his chief aid and instrument becomes an accomplice of the revolt
\nagainst the divine Will and the old sins of the lower members take advantage of this sanction to raise their diminished heads.
\nTherefore there must be a constant insistence on one main idea, the self-surrender to the Master of our being, God within us and
\nin the world, the supreme Self, the universal Spirit. The buddhi dwelling always in this master idea must discourage all its own
\nlesser insistences and preferences and teach the whole being that the ego whether it puts forth its claim through the reason, the
\npersonal will, the heart or the desire-soul in the prana, has no just claim of any kind and all grief, revolt, impatience, trouble
\nis a violence against the Master of the being. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis complete self-surrender must be the chief mainstay of
\nthe sadhaka because it is the only way, apart from complete quiescence and indifference to all action,
\n\u2014 and that has to be
\navoided, \u2014 by which the absolute calm and peace can come.
\nThe persistence of trouble, aśā<\/font>nti<\/i>, the length of time taken for this purification and perfection, itself must not be allowed to
\nbecome a reason for discouragement and impatience. It comes because there is still something in the nature which responds to
\nit, and the recurrence of trouble serves to bring out the presence of the defect, put the sadhaka upon his guard and bring about
\na more enlightened and consistent action of the will to get rid of it. When the trouble is too strong to be kept out, it must be
\nallowed to pass and its return discouraged by a greater vigilance and insistence of the spiritualised buddhi. Thus persisting, it
\nwill be found that these things lose their force more and more, become more and more external and brief in their recurrence,
\nuntil finally calm becomes the law of the being. This rule persists so long as the mental buddhi is the chief instrument; but when
\nthe supramental light takes possession of mind and heart, then  
\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\tthere can be no trouble, grief or disturbance; for that brings with
\nit a spiritual nature of illumined strength in which these things can have no place. There the only vibrations and emotions are those which belong to the
\n\t\t\tā<\/font>nandamaya <\/i>nature of divine unity. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe calm established in the whole being must remain the same whatever happens, in health and disease, in pleasure and
\nin pain, even in the strongest physical pain, in good fortune and misfortune, our own or that of those we love, in success and
\nfailure, honour and insult, praise and blame, justice done to us or injustice, everything that ordinarily affects the mind. If we see
\nunity everywhere, if we recognise that all comes by the divine will, see God in all, in our enemies or rather our opponents in
\nthe game of life as well as our friends, in the powers that oppose and resist us as well as the powers that favour and assist, in
\nall energies and forces and happenings, and if besides we can feel that all is undivided from our self, all the world one with
\nus within our universal being, then this attitude becomes much easier to the heart and mind. But even before we can attain or are
\nfirmly seated in that universal vision, we have by all the means in our power to insist on this receptive and active equality and
\ncalm. Even something of it, alpam api asya dharmasya<\/i>, is a great step towards perfection; a first firmness in it is the beginning of
\nliberated perfection; its completeness is the perfect assurance of a rapid progress in all the other members of perfection. For
\nwithout it we can have no solid basis; and by the pronounced lack of it we shall be constantly falling back to the lower status
\nof desire, ego, duality, ignorance. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis calm once attained, vital and mental preference has
\nlost its disturbing force; it only remains as a formal habit of the mind. Vital acceptance or rejection, the greater readiness to welcome this rather than that happening, the mental acceptance or rejection, the preference of this more congenial to that other less
\ncongenial idea or truth, the dwelling upon the will to this rather than to that other result, become a formal mechanism still necessary as an index of the direction in which the Shakti is meant to turn or for the present is made to incline by the Master of our
\nbeing. But it loses its disturbing aspect of strong egoistic will,  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tintolerant desire, obstinate liking. These appearances may remain for a while in a diminished form, but as the calm of equality increases, deepens, becomes more essential and compact,
\nghana<\/i>,
\nthey disappear, cease to colour the mental and vital substance or occur only as touches on the most external physical mind,
\nare unable to penetrate within, and at last even that recurrence, that appearance at the outer gates of mind ceases. Then there
\ncan come the living reality of the perception that all in us is done
\nand directed by the Master of our being, yathā<\/font> prayukto ‘smi,<\/i> 
\ntathā<\/font> karomi<\/i>, which was before only a strong idea and faith with occasional and derivative glimpses of the divine action behind
\nthe becomings of our personal nature. Now every movement is seen to be the form given by the Shakti, the divine power in us, to
\nthe indications of the Purusha, still no doubt personalised, still belittled in the inferior mental form, but not primarily egoistic,
\nan imperfect form, not a positive deformation. We have then to get beyond this stage even. For the perfect action and experience
\nis not to be determined by any kind of mental or vital preference, but by the revealing and inspiring spiritual will which is the
\nShakti in her direct and real initiation. When I say that as I am appointed, I work, I still bring in a limiting personal element
\nand mental reaction. But it is the Master who will do his own work through myself as his instrument, and there must be no
\nmental or other preference in me to limit, to interfere, to be a source of imperfect working. The mind must become a silent
\nluminous channel for the revelations of the supramental Truth and of the Will involved in its seeing. Then shall the action be
\nthe action of that highest Being and Truth and not a qualified translation or mistranslation in the mind. Whatever limitation,
\nselection, relation is imposed, will be self-imposed by the Divine on himself in the individual at the moment for his own purpose,
\nnot binding, not final, not an ignorant determination of the mind. The thought and will become then an action from a luminous Infinite, a formulation not excluding other formulations, but rather putting them into their just place in relation to itself,
\nenglobing or transforming them even and proceeding to larger formations of the divine knowledge and action.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n   <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t The first calm that comes is of the nature of peace, the
\nabsence of all unquiet, grief and disturbance. As the equality becomes more intense, it takes on a fuller substance of positive
\nhappiness and spiritual ease. This is the joy of the spirit in itself, dependent on nothing external for its absolute existence, 
\nnirāś<\/font>raya<\/i>, as the Gita describes it, antah<\/font>-sukho antarārā<\/font>mah<\/font><\/i>,
\nan exceeding inner happiness, brahmasamsparś<\/font>am atyantam<\/i> 
\nsukham aś<\/font>nute<\/i>. Nothing can disturb it, and it extends itself to the soul’s view of outward things, imposes on them too the law
\nof this quiet spiritual joy. For the base of it is still calm, it is an even and tranquil neutral joy,
\nahaituka<\/i>. And as the supramental
\nlight grows, a greater Ananda comes, the base of the abundant ecstasy of the spirit in all it is, becomes, sees, experiences and
\nof the laughter of the Shakti doing luminously the work of the Divine and taking his Ananda in all the worlds. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe perfected action of equality transforms all the values 
\nof things on the basis of the divine ā<\/font>nandamaya <\/i>power. The outward action
\n\t\t\tmay remain what it was or may change, that must be as the Spirit
\n\t\t\tdirects and according to the need of the work to be done for the
\n\t\t\tworld, \u2014 but the whole inner action is of another kind. The Shakti
\n\t\t\tin its different powers of knowledge, action, enjoyment, creation,
\n\t\t\tformulation, will direct itself to the different aims of existence,
\n\t\t\tbut in another spirit; they will be the aims, the fruits, the lines
\n\t\t\tof working laid down by the Divine from his light above, not
\n\t\t\tanything claimed by the ego for its own separate sake. The mind, the
\n\t\t\theart, the vital being, the body itself will be satisfied with
\n\t\t\twhatever comes to them from the dispensation of the Master of the
\n\t\t\tbeing and in that find a subtlest and yet fullest spiritualised
\n\t\t\tsatisfaction and delight; but the divine knowledge and will above
\n\t\t\twill work forward towards its farther ends. Here both success and
\n\t\t\tfailure lose their present meanings. There can be no failure; for
\n\t\t\twhatever happens is the intention of the Master of the worlds, not
\n\t\t\tfinal, but a step on his way, and if it appears as an opposition, a
\n\t\t\tdefeat, a denial, even for the moment a total denial of the aim set
\n\t\t\tbefore the instrumental being, it is so only in appearance and
\n\t\t\tafterwards it will appear in its right place in the economy of his
\n\t\t\taction, \u2014 a   <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\tfuller supramental vision may even see at once or beforehand its
\nnecessity and its true relation to the eventual result to which it seems so contrary and even perhaps its definite prohibition. Or,
\nif \u2014 while the light is deficient \u2014 there has been a misinterpretation whether with regard to the aim or the course of the action
\nand the steps of the result, the failure comes as a rectification and is calmly accepted without bringing discouragement or a
\nfluctuation of the will. In the end it is found that there is no such thing as failure and the soul takes an equal passive or active
\ndelight in all happenings as the steps and formulations of the divine Will. The same evolution takes place with regard to good
\nfortune and ill fortune, the pleasant and the unpleasant in every  form, mangala amangala<\/i>, priya apriya<\/i>. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd as with happenings, so with persons, equality brings an entire change of the view and the attitude. The first result of the
\nequal mind and spirit is to bring about an increasing charity and inner toleration of all persons, ideas, views, actions, because it
\nis seen that God is in all beings and each acts according to his 
\nnature, his svabhā<\/font>va<\/i>, and its present formulations. When there is the positive equal Ananda, this deepens to a sympathetic understanding and in the end an equal universal love. None of these things need prevent various relations or different formulations
\nof the inner attitude according to the need of life as determined by the spiritual will, or firm furtherings of this idea, view, action against that other for the same need and purpose by the same determination, or a strong outward or inward resistance,
\nopposition and action against the forces that are impelled to stand in the way of the decreed movement. And there may be
\neven the rush of the Rudra energy forcefully working upon or shattering the
\n\t\t\thuman or other obstacle, because that is necessary both for him and
\n\t\t\tfor the world purpose. But the essence of the equal inmost attitude
\n\t\t\tis not altered or diminished by these more superficial formulations.
\n\t\t\tThe spirit, the fundamental soul remain the same, even while the
\n\t\t\tShakti of knowledge, will, action, love does its work and assumes
\n\t\t\tthe various forms needed for its work. And in the end all becomes a
\n\t\t\tform of a luminous spiritual unity with all persons, energies,
\n\t\t\tthings in the being of God and   <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>727<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t in the luminous, spiritual, one and universal force, in which
\none’s own action becomes an inseparable part of the action of all, is not divided from it, but feels perfectly every relation as a
\nrelation with God in all in the complex terms of his universal oneness. That is a plenitude which can hardly be described in
\nthe language of the dividing mental reason for it uses all its oppositions, yet escapes from them, nor can it be put in the
\nterms of our limited mental psychology. It belongs to another domain of consciousness, another plane of our being.
\n   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>728<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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