{"id":3878,"date":"2013-07-13T01:51:55","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:51:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3878"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:51:55","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:51:55","slug":"35-7-september-1955-vol-07-questions-and-answers-volume-07","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/02-works-of-the-mother\/01-cwmce\/07-questions-and-answers-volume-07\/35-7-september-1955-vol-07-questions-and-answers-volume-07","title":{"rendered":"-35_7 September 1955.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\n7
\nSeptember 1955 <\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

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

Mother reads from Lights on Yoga, \u201cWork\u201d.
\n<\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAll work\u201d is \u201ca school of experience\u201d? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, surely. You don’t understand? <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

No, Mother. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

If you don’t do anything, you cannot have
\nany experience. The whole life is a field of experience. Each movement you
\nmake, each thought you have, each work you do, can be an experience, and must
\nbe an experience; and naturally work in particular is a field of experience
\nwhere one must apply all the progress which one endeavours to make inwardly.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

If you remain in meditation or
\ncontemplation without working, well, you don’t know if you have progressed or
\nnot. You may live in an illusion, the illusion of your progress; while if you
\nbegin to work, all the circumstances of your work, the contact with others, the
\nmaterial occupation, all this is a field of experience in order that you may
\nbecome aware not only of the progress made but of all the progress that remains
\nto be made. If you live closed up in yourself, without acting, you may live in
\na completely subjective illusion; the moment you externalise your action and
\nenter into contact with others, with circumstances and the objects of life, you
\nbecome aware absolutely objectively of whether you have made progress or not,
\nwhether you are more calm, more conscious, stronger, more unselfish, whether
\nyou no longer have any desire, any preference, any weakness, any unfaithfulness
\n\u2013 you can become aware of all this by working. But if you remain enclosed in a
\nmeditation that’s altogether personal, you may enter into a total illusion and
\nnever come out of it, and believe that you have realised extraordinary things,
\nwhile really you have only the impression, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 291<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

the illusion that you have done so.  <\/span><\/p>\n

That’s what Sri Aurobindo means. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Then, Mother why do all the spiritual schools in India have as their
\ndoctrine escape from action? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, because all this is founded upon the
\nteaching that life is an illusion. It began with the teaching of the Buddha who
\nsaid that existence was the fruit of desire, and that there was only one way of
\ncoming out of misery and suffering and desire; it was to come out of existence.
\nAnd then this continued with Shankara who added that not only is it the fruit
\nof desire but it is a total illusion, and as long as you live in this illusion
\nyou cannot realise the Divine. For him there was not even the Divine, I think;
\nfor the Buddha, at least, there wasn’t any. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Then did they truly have experiences? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

That depends on what you call
\n\u201cexperience\u201d. They certainly had an inner contact with something. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

The Buddha certainly had an inner contact
\nwith something which, in comparison with the external life, was a
\nnon-existence; and in this non-existence, naturally, all the results of
\nexistence disappear. There is a state like this; it is even said that if one
\ncan keep this state for twenty days, one is sure to lose one’s body; if it is
\nexclusive, I quite agree with it.  <\/span><\/p>\n

But it may be an experience which remains
\nat the back, you see, and is conscious even while not being exclusive, and
\nwhich causes the contact with the world and the outer consciousness to be
\nsupported by something that is free and independent. This indeed is a state in
\nwhich one can truly make very great progress externally, because one can be
\ndetached from everything and act without attachment, without preference, with
\nthat inner freedom which is expressed outwardly. <\/span><\/p>\n

Yet this is the real necessity: once this
\ninner freedom has <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 292<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

been attained and the conscious contact with
\nwhat is eternal and infinite, then, without losing this consciousness one must
\nreturn to action and let that influence the whole consciousness turned towards
\naction.  <\/span><\/p>\n

This is what Sri Aurobindo calls bringing
\ndown the Force from above. In this way there is a chance of being able to
\nchange the world, because one has brought in a new Force, a new region, a new
\nconsciousness and put it into contact with the outer world. So its presence and
\naction will produce inevitable changes and, let us hope, a total transformation
\nin what this outer world is. <\/span><\/p>\n

So we could say that the Buddha quite
\ncertainly had the first part of the experience, but that he never dreamt of the
\nsecond, because it was contrary to his own theory. His theory was that one had
\nto run away; but it is obvious that there is only one way of escape, to die,
\nand yet, as he himself has said so well, you may be dead and be completely
\nattached to life and still be in the cycle of births and not have liberation.
\nAnd in fact he has admitted the idea that it is by successive passing lives on
\nthe earth that one can manage to develop oneself to reach this liberation. But
\nfor him the ideal was that the world would not exist any longer. It was as
\nthough he accused the Divine of having made a mistake and that there was only
\none thing to do, to rectify the mistake by annulling it. But naturally, to be
\nreasonable and logical, he did not admit the Divine. It was a mistake made by
\nwhom, how, in what way? \u2013 this he never explained. He simply said that it was
\nmade and that the world had begun with desire and had to end with desire. He
\nwas just on the point of saying that this world was purely subjective, that is,
\na collective illusion, and that if the illusion ceased the world would cease to
\nbe. But he did not come so far. It is Shankara who took over and made the thing
\naltogether complete in his teaching.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

If we go back to the teaching of the
\nRishis, for example, there was no idea of flight out of the world; for them the
\nrealisa- <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 293<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

tion had to be terrestrial. They conceived
\na Golden Age very well, in which the realisation would be terrestrial. But
\nstarting from a certain decline of vitality in the spiritual life of the
\ncountry, perhaps, from a different orientation which came in, you see… it is certainly
\nstarting from the teaching of the Buddha that this idea of flight came, which
\nhas undermined the vitality of the country, because one had to make an effort
\nto cut oneself off from life. The outer reality became an illusory falsehood,
\nand one had no longer to have anything to do with it. So naturally one was cut
\noff from the universal energy, and the vitality went on diminishing, and with
\nthis vitality all the possibilities of realisation also diminished.  <\/span><\/p>\n

But it is very remarkable… I have met
\nmany people who were trying this method of detachment and separation from life,
\nand living exclusively in the inner reality. These people, almost all of them,
\nhad in the outer life absolutely gross defects. When they returned to the
\nordinary consciousness, they were very much lower than one of the ‘elite, for
\ninstance, a man of great culture and great intellectual and moral development.
\nThese people in their ordinary conduct, when they came out of their meditation,
\ntheir exclusive concentration, lived very grossly. They had very, very ordinary
\ndefects, you see. I knew many of this kind. Or perhaps they had come to a stage
\nwhere their outer life was a sort of dream in which they were, so to say, not
\nexisting. But one had altogether the impression of beings who were completely
\nincomplete, totally incomplete, that is, outwardly there was nothing at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

But if in the outer consciousness one is very low, how can one meditate?
\nIt becomes very difficult, doesn’t it? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, very difficult! <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Then how do these people succeed? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 294<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

But they came out of it completely, they
\nleft it as one takes off a cloak, then they put it aside and entered another
\npart of their being. And this is what happened exactly, it was as though they
\ntook away this consciousness, laid it aside and entered another part of their
\nbeing. And in their meditation, as long as they remained there, it was very
\ngood. But these people, most of them, when in that state, were in a kind of
\nsamadhi, and they could not even speak; and so when they came back and returned
\nto the ordinary consciousness, it was just where it was before, completely
\nunchanged; there was no contact. <\/span><\/p>\n

You see, what makes the thing difficult
\nfor you to understand is that you don’t know concretely, practically, that
\nthere are… different planes of your being, as of all beings, which may not
\nhave any contact among themselves, and that one may very well pass from one
\nplane to another, and live in a certain consciousness, leaving the other
\nabsolutely asleep. And moreover, even in activity, at different times different
\nstates of being enter into activity, and unless one takes the greatest care to
\nunify them, put them all in harmony, one of them may pull from one side,
\nanother from the other, and a third pull from the third, and all of them be
\nabsolutely in contradiction with one another. <\/span><\/p>\n

There are people who in a certain state of
\nbeing are constructive, for example, and capable of organising their life and
\ndoing very useful work, and in another part of their being they are absolutely
\ndestructive and constantly demolish what the other has constructed. I knew
\nquite a number of people of this kind who, apparently had a rather incoherent
\nlife, but it was because the two parts of the being, instead of completing each
\nother and harmonising in a synthesis, were separated and in opposition, and one
\nundid what the other did, and all the time they passed like this from one to
\nthe other. They had a disorganised life. And there are more people of this kind
\nthan one would think!  <\/span><\/p>\n

There are very outstanding examples,
\nstriking ones, so clear and distinct they are; but less totally opposed
\nconditions, though <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 295<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

all the same in opposition to one another,
\noccur very, very often. Besides, one has oneself the experience, when one has
\ntried to make progress; there is one part of the being which participates in
\nthe effort and makes progress, and suddenly, without rhyme or reason, all the
\neffort one has made, all the consciousness one has gained, capsizes in
\nsomething which is quite different, opposed, over which one has no control.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

Some people can make an effort the whole
\nday through, succeed in building something within themselves; they go to sleep
\nat night and the next morning all that they had done on the previous day is lost,
\nthey have lost it in a state of unconsciousness. This happens very often, these
\nare not exceptional cases, far from it. And this is what explains, you see, why
\nsome people \u2013 when they withdraw into their higher mind for instance \u2013 can
\nenter into very deep meditation and be liberated from the things of this world,
\nand then when they return to their ordinary physical consciousness, are
\nabsolutely ordinary if not even vulgar, because they haven’t taken care to
\nestablish any contact, and to see that what is above acts and transforms what
\nis below.  <\/span><\/p>\n

That’s all. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Mother, about the Buddha I have a question. You said that the Avatar
\ncomes to the earth to show that the Divine can live upon the earth. Then why
\ndid he preach just the contrary? Is he an Avatar or not? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

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

That!… Some people say he was an Avatar,
\nothers say no, but this, to tell you the truth, it is…  <\/span><\/p>\n

I think that this first thing, that the
\nAvatar comes to the earth to prove that the Divine can… it is not so much to
\nprove by words as to prove by a certain realisation; and I think that it would
\nbe rather this aspect of the Divine which is constructive and preservative,
\nrather than a transformative and destructive aspect. You see, to use the Indian
\nnames known in India, well, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 296<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

I think they are Avatars of Vishnu who
\ncome rather to prove that the Divine can come upon earth; whereas each time
\nShiva has manifested he has always manifested like this, in beings who have
\ntried to fight against an illusion and demolish what is there.  <\/span><\/p>\n

I have reasons to think that the Buddha
\nwas one. To speak more accurately, he manifested something of the power of
\nShiva: it was the same compassion, the same understanding of all the misery,
\nand the same power which destroys \u2013 obviously with the intention of
\ntransforming, but destroys rather than constructs. His work does not seem to
\nhave been very constructive. It was very necessary to teach men practically not
\nto be egoistic; from that point of view it was very necessary. But in its
\ndeeper principle it has not helped very much in the transformation of the
\nearth.  <\/span><\/p>\n

As I said, you see, instead of helping the
\ndescent of the higher Consciousness into the terrestrial life, it has strongly
\nencouraged the separation of the deeper consciousness, which he said was the
\nonly true one, from all outer expression.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Now, you see, this question of the Divine
\nupon the earth: well, quite naturally those who believed in him have made a god
\nof him. One has only to see all the temples and all the Buddhist godheads to
\nknow that human nature has always the tendency to deify what it admires.  <\/span><\/p>\n

So, there it is! <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

There is something else we would like to ask. There are many discussions
\non this subject: <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

should we take any interest in those songs which have no meaning,
\nusually cinema songs? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Take interest? How do you mean? <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

There are many who listen to these songs and sing them also. <\/span><\/i>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 297<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

Yes, but I don’t understand \u201ctaking
\ninterest\u201d. One may like these things because one has no taste, but I don’t see
\nwhat is meant by \u201ctaking interest\u201d. One takes interest in a study, one takes
\ninterest in a work, one takes interest in the progress to be made, but… One
\nmay indulge in an activity of idleness, but that doesn’t mean that one can take
\nany interest in it. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

If one has to sing these songs? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Has to? Why? To earn your living? (Laughter<\/i>) <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Isn’t it an obstacle to our progress?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

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

But everything that brings down the
\nconsciousness is an obstacle in one’s progress. If you have a desire it creates
\nan obstacle in your progress; if you have a bad thought or bad will, it creates
\nan obstacle in your progress; if you welcome some kind of falsehood, it creates
\nan obstacle in your progress; and if you cultivate vulgarity in yourself, it
\ncreates an obstacle in your progress; everything which is not in keeping with
\nthe Truth creates an obstacle to progress; and there are hundreds of these
\nthings every day.  <\/span><\/p>\n

For example, every movement of impatience,
\nevery movement of anger, every movement of violence, every tendency to
\ndissimulation, every deformation of the truth, whether big or small, every bad
\nwill, every partial judgment, every preference, every encouragement to bad
\ntaste and to… yes, to vulgarity, all this is constantly in the way. All this,
\nevery one of these movements, big or small, passing or lasting, all are like so
\nmany stones to build the wall to prevent yourself from progressing. It is not
\none thing only, there are hundreds of them, thousands. It is enough to have a
\npreference in oneself, it is enough to be impatient, enough to have a little
\ndesire to conceal something, enough to feel a disgust, a distaste for effort,
\nit is enough… anything at all is enough, which has something to do with
\ndesires, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 298<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

repulsions, all that, for it to impede
\nyour progress. And then, from the point of view of the intellectual being, the
\nartistic being, the side of inner and outer culture, every lack of taste,
\nwhatever it may be, is a terrible obstacle.  <\/span><\/p>\n

This world, I must
\nsay, is a world of extremes from the point of view of taste, artistic and
\nliterary culture; on one side, it makes a great effort to discover something
\nthat’s very high, very pure, very noble, and on the other, at the other end, it
\nsinks into a vulgarity which certainly is infinitely greater than the vulgarity
\nof the past two or three centuries. What is curious is that, going back two or
\nthree centuries, people who were uncultured were gross, but their grossness
\nresembled that of animals, and there was not much perversion in it; there was a
\nlittle, because as soon as the mind is there, perversion comes in, but there
\nwas not a great deal of perversion. But now, what does not rise to the
\nmountain-peak, what remains on ground-level, is it absolutely perverted in its
\ngrossness, that is, it is not only ignorant and stupid, it is ugly, dirty and
\nrepugnant, it is deformed, it is wicked, it is very low. And it is indeed the
\nwrong use of the mind which has produced this. Without the mind this perversion
\ndid not exist, but it’s the wrong use of the mind which produces this
\nperversion. Well, it has become what is ugly from every point of view, now,
\nwhat is vulgar and ugly. <\/span><\/p>\n

There are things,
\nthings considered very pretty nowadays… I have seen photographs or
\nreproductions which are considered very fine but they are frightfully vulgar in
\ntheir perversion, and yet people go into ecstasies over them and find them
\npretty! It’s because there is something deformed, not only without culture, not
\nonly undeveloped, but deformed, something that’s much worse, because it is much
\nmore difficult to restore something perverted and deformed than to enlighten
\nsomething ignorant and uneducated. Well, I think some things have been great
\ninstruments of perversion, and among these one may put the cinema. It could
\nhave been, and I hope it will become, an instrument of education and
\ndevelopment; but for the moment it has<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 299<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

been an instrument of perversion, and of a
\ntruly hideous perversion: perversion of taste, perversion of consciousness, and
\neverything with a terrible moral and physical ugliness. Yet it is something
\nwhich can be used for education, progress, culture and artistic development;
\nand from this point of view it could be a means of spreading beauty and culture
\nmuch more widely and making them much more accessible to all, than the former
\nmethods could do. But it is always like this \u2013 for what can be better, if it is
\nnot better, it becomes worse. And as I said at the beginning, we are in a
\nperiod of excesses \u2013 excess in every way \u2013 a thing tries excessively to perfect
\nitself and falls into excesses of perversion which, relatively, are as great if
\nnot greater. And if one looks attentively at oneself, one becomes aware that
\nnaturally, as one lives in the world as it is at present, one shares in its
\nvulgarity, and that unless one observes oneself closely and constantly puts the
\nlight of one’s highest consciousness upon oneself, one risks making mistakes in
\ntaste, from the spiritual point of view, rather frequently.  <\/span><\/p>\n

There we are!  <\/span><\/p>\n

Now I am going to give you a meditation
\nthis evening, and I am going to see whether you are capable of taking a
\ncerebral bath. Cleansing! <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Mother, when we meditate here, on which centre should
\nwe concentrate? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Truly speaking, each time it ought to be
\ndifferent. <\/span><\/p>\n

The first time I told you to meditate upon
\nwhat we had read, didn’t I? Well, if you like, today we could try to let a
\npurifying consciousness enter into us, which will give us, as I just said
\njokingly, a brain bath, that is, a good little cleansing \u2013 a light which
\npurifies and cleans.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 300<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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

7 September 1955 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mother reads from Lights on Yoga, \u201cWork\u201d.   \u201cAll work\u201d is \u201ca school of experience\u201d?   Yes, surely. You don’t understand?…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-07-questions-and-answers-volume-07","wpcat-112-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3878","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=3878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3878\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}