{"id":3996,"date":"2013-07-13T01:52:46","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3996"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:52:46","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:52:46","slug":"15-4-august-1929-vol-03-questions-and-answers-volume-03","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/02-works-of-the-mother\/01-cwmce\/03-questions-and-answers-volume-03\/15-4-august-1929-vol-03-questions-and-answers-volume-03","title":{"rendered":"-15_4 August 1929.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

\n
\n
\n
\n\u00a0<\/font><\/span>4 August 1929<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/b> <\/font> <\/i> <\/b> <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Is not surrender the
\nsame as sacrifice? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

In our Yoga
\nthere is no room for sacrifice. But everything depends on the meaning you put
\non the word. In its pure sense it means a consecrated giving, a making sacred
\nto the Divine. But in the significance that it now bears, sacrifice is
\nsomething that works for destruction; it carries about it an atmosphere of
\nnegation. This kind of sacrifice is not fulfilment; it is a deprivation, a
\nself-immolation. It is your possibilities that you sacrifice, the possibilities
\nand realisations of your personality from the most material to the highest
\nspiritual range. Sacrifice diminishes your being. If physically you sacrifice
\nyour life, your body, you give up all your possibilities on the material plane;
\nyou have done with the achievements of your earthly existence. In the same way
\nyou can morally sacrifice your life; you give up the amplitude and free
\nfulfilment of your inner existence. There is always in this idea of
\nself-immolation a sense of forcing, a constriction, an imposed self-denial.
\nThis is an ideal that does not give room for the soul’s deeper and larger
\nspontaneities. By surrender we mean not this but a spontaneous self-giving, a
\ngiving of all your self to the Divine, to a greater Consciousness of which you
\nare a part. Surrender will not diminish, but increase; it will not lessen or
\nweaken or destroy your personality, it will fortify and aggrandise it.
\nSurrender means a free total giving with all the delight of the giving; there
\nis no sense of sacrifice in it. If you have the slightest feeling that you are
\nmaking a sacrifice, then it is no longer surrender. For it means that you
\nreserve yourself or that you are trying to give, with grudging or with pain and
\neffort, and have not the joy of the gift, perhaps not even the feeling that you
\nare giving. When you do anything with the sense of a compression of your being,
\nbe sure that you are doing it in the wrong way. True surrender
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 114<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

enlarges
\nyou; it increases your capacity; it gives you a greater measure in quality and
\nin quantity which you could not have had by yourself. This new greater measure
\nof quality and quantity is different from anything you could attain before: you
\nenter into another world, into a wideness which you could not have entered if
\nyou did not surrender. It is as when a drop of water falls into the sea; if it
\nstill kept there its separate identity, it would remain a little drop of water
\nand nothing more, a little drop crushed by all the immensity around, because it
\nhas not surrendered. But, surrendering, it unites with the sea and participates
\nin the nature and power and vastness of the whole sea. <\/span><\/p>\n

There is no ambiguity or vagueness in the movement, it is clear
\nand strong and definite. If a small human mind stands in front of the Divine
\nUniversal Mind and clings to its separateness, it will remain what it is, a
\nsmall bounded thing, incapable of knowing the nature of the higher reality or
\neven of coming in contact with it. The two continue to stand apart and are,
\nqualitatively as well as quantitatively, quite different from each other. But
\nif the little human mind surrenders, it will be merged in the Divine Universal
\nMind; it will be one in quality and quantity with it; losing nothing but its
\nown limitations and deformations, it will receive from it its vastness and
\nluminous clearness. The small existence will change its nature; it will put on
\nthe nature of the greater truth to which it surrenders. But if it resists and
\nfights, if it revolts against the Universal Mind, then a conflict and pressure
\nare inevitable in which what is weak and small cannot fail to be drawn into
\nthat power and immensity. If it does not surrender, its only other possible
\nfate is absorption and extinction. A human being, who comes into contact with
\nthe Divine Mind and surrenders, will find that his own mind begins at once to
\nbe purified of its obscurities and to share in the power and the knowledge of
\nthe Divine Universal Mind. If he stands in front, but separated, without any
\ncontact, he will remain what he is, a little drop of water in the measureless
\nvastness. If <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 115<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

he revolts,
\nhe will lose his mind; its powers will diminish and disappear. And what is true
\nof the mind is true of all the other parts of the nature. It is as when you
\nfight against one who is too strong for you a broken head is all you gain. How
\ncan you fight something that is a million times stronger? Each time you revolt,
\nyou get a knock, and each blow takes away a portion of your strength, as when
\none who engages in a pugilistic encounter with a far superior rival receives
\nblow after blow and each blow makes him weaker and weaker till he is knocked
\nout. There is no necessity of a willed intervention, the action is automatic.
\nNothing else can happen if you dash yourself in revolt against the Immensity.
\nAs long as you remain in your corner and follow the course of the ordinary
\nlife, you are not touched or hurt; but once you come in contact with the
\nDivine, there are only two ways open to you. You surrender and merge in it, and
\nyour surrender enlarges and glorifies you; or you revolt and all your
\npossibilities are destroyed and your powers ebb away and are drawn from you
\ninto That which you oppose. <\/span><\/p>\n

There are many wrong ideas current about surrender. Most people
\nseem to look upon surrender as an abdication of the personality; but that is a
\ngrievous error. For the individual is meant to manifest one aspect of the
\nDivine Consciousness, and the expression of its characteristic nature is what
\ncreates his personality; then, by taking the right attitude towards the Divine,
\nthis personality is purified of all the influences of the lower nature which
\ndiminish and distort it and it becomes more strongly personal, more itself,
\nmore complete. The truth and power of the personality come out with a more
\nresplendent distinctness, its character is more precisely marked than it could
\npossibly be when mixed with all the obscurity and ignorance, all the dirt and
\nalloy of the lower nature. It undergoes a heightening and glorification, an
\naggrandisement of capacity, a realisation of the maximum of its possibilities.
\nBut to have this sublimating change, he must first give up all that, by
\ndistorting, limiting and obscuring the true nature, fetters and debases and <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage -116<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\n
\n <\/span>disfigures
\nthe true personality; he must throw from him whatever belongs to the ignorant
\nlower movements of the ordinary man and his blind limping ordinary life. And
\nfirst of all he must give up his desires; for desire is the most obscure and
\nthe most obscuring movement of the lower nature. Desires are motions of
\nweakness and ignorance and they keep you chained to your weakness and to your
\nignorance. Men have the impression that their desires are born within; they
\nfeel as if they come out of themselves or arise within themselves; but it is a
\nfalse impression. Desires are waves of the vast sea of the obscure lower nature
\nand they pass from one person to another. Men do not generate a desire in
\nthemselves, but are invaded by these waves; whoever is open and without defence
\nis caught in them and tossed about. Desire by engrossing and possessing him
\nmakes him incapable of any discrimination and gives him the impression that it
\nis part of his nature to manifest it. In reality, it has nothing to do with his
\ntrue nature. It is the same with all the lower impulses, jealousy or envy,
\nhatred or violence. These too are movements that seize you, waves that
\noverwhelm and invade; they deform, they do not belong to the true character or
\nthe true nature; they are no intrinsic or inseparable part of yourself, but
\ncome out of the sea of surrounding obscurity in which move the forces of the
\nlower nature. These desires, these passions have no personality, there is
\nnothing in them or their action that is peculiar to you; they manifest in the
\nsame way in everyone. The obscure movements of the mind too, the doubts and
\nerrors and difficulties that cloud the personality and diminish its expansion
\nand fulfilment, come from the same source. They are passing waves and they
\ncatch anyone who is ready to be caught and utilised as their blind instrument.
\nAnd yet each goes on believing that these movements are part of himself and a
\nprecious product of his own free personality. Even we find people clinging to
\nthem and their disabilities as the very sign or essence of what they call their
\nfreedom.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you have understood this, you will be ready to <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 117<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

understand
\nthe difference, the great difference between spirituality and morality, two
\nthings that are constantly confused with each other. The spiritual life, the
\nlife of Yoga, has for its object to grow into the divine consciousness and for
\nits result to purify, intensify, glorify and perfect what is in you. It makes
\nyou a power for manifesting of the Divine; it raises the character of each
\npersonality to its full value and brings it to its maximum expression; for this
\nis part of the Divine plan. Morality proceeds by a mental construction and,
\nwith a few ideas of what is good and what is not, sets up an ideal type into
\nwhich all must force themselves. This moral ideal differs in its constituents
\nand its ensemble at different times and different places. And yet it proclaims
\nitself as a unique type, a categoric absolute; it admits of none other outside
\nitself; it does not even admit a variation within itself. All are to be moulded
\naccording to its single ideal pattern, everybody is to be made uniformly and
\nfaultlessly the same. It is because morality is of this rigid unreal nature
\nthat it is in its principle and its working the contrary of the spiritual life.
\nThe spiritual life reveals the one essence in all, but reveals too its infinite
\ndiversity; it works for diversity in oneness and for perfection in that
\ndiversity. Morality lifts up one artificial standard contrary to the variety of
\nlife and the freedom of the spirit. Creating something mental, fixed and
\nlimited, it asks all to conform to it. All must labour to acquire the same
\nqualities and the same ideal nature. Morality is not divine or of the Divine;
\nit is of man and human. Morality takes for its basic element a fixed division
\ninto the good and the bad; but this is an arbitrary notion. It takes things
\nthat are relative and tries to impose them as absolutes; for this good and this
\nbad differ in differing climates and times, epochs and countries. The moral
\nnotion goes so far as to say that there are good desires and bad desires and
\ncalls on you to accept the one and reject the other. But the spiritual life
\ndemands that you should reject desire altogether. Its law is that you must cast
\naside all movements that draw you away from the Divine. You must reject them,
\nnot because they
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 118<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\n
\n <\/span>are bad in
\nthemselves, \u2013 for they may be good for another man or in another sphere, \u2013 but
\nbecause they belong to the impulses or forces that, being unillumined and
\nignorant, stand in the way of your approach to the Divine. All desires, whether
\ngood or bad, come within this description; for desire itself arises from an
\nunillumined vital being and its ignorance. On the other hand you must accept
\nall movements that bring you into contact with the Divine. But you accept them,
\nnot because they are good in themselves, but because they bring you to the
\nDivine. Accept then all that takes you to the Divine. Reject all that takes you
\naway from it, but do not say that this is good and that is bad or try to impose
\nyour outlook on others; for, what you term bad may be the very thing that is
\ngood for your neighbour who is not trying to realise the Divine Life. <\/span><\/p>\n

Let us take an illustration of the difference between the moral
\nand the spiritual view of things. The ordinary social notions distinguish
\nbetween two classes of men, \u2013 the generous, the avaricious. The avaricious man
\nis despised and blamed, while the generous man is considered unselfish and
\nuseful to society and praised for his virtue. But to the spiritual vision, they
\nboth stand on the same level; the generosity of the one, the avarice of the
\nother are deformations of a higher truth, a greater divine power. There is a
\npower, a divine movement that spreads, diffuses, throws out freely forces and
\nthings and whatever else it possesses on all the levels of nature from the most
\nmaterial to the most spiritual plane. Behind the generous man and his
\ngenerosity is a soul-type that expresses this movement; he is a power for
\ndiffusion, for wide distribution. There is another power, another divine
\nmovement that collects and amasses; it gathers and accumulates forces and
\nthings and all possible possessions, whether of the lower or of the higher
\nplanes. The man you tax with avarice was meant to be an instrument of this
\nmovement. Both are important, both needed in the entire plan; the movement that
\nstores up and concentrates is no less needed than the movement that spreads and
\ndiffuses. Both, if truly<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage -119<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

surrendered
\nto the Divine, will be utilised as instruments for its divine work to the same
\ndegree and with an equal value. But when they are not surrendered both are
\nalike moved by impulses of ignorance. One is pushed to throw away, the other is
\npulled towards keeping back; but both are driven by forces obscure to their own
\nconsciousness, and between the two there is little to choose. One could say to
\nthe much-praised generous man, from the higher point of vision of Yoga, \u201cAll
\nyour impulses of generosity are nothing in the values of the spirit, for they
\ncome from ego and ignorant desire.\u201d And, on the other hand, among those who are
\naccused of avarice, you can see sometimes a man amassing and hoarding, full of
\na quiet and concentrated determination in the work assigned to him by his
\nnature, who, once awakened, would make a very good instrument of the Divine.
\nBut ordinarily the avaricious man acts from ego and desire like his opposite;
\nit is the other end of the same ignorance. Both will have to purify themselves
\nand change before they can make contact with the something higher that is
\nbehind them and express it in the way to which they are called by their nature.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

In the same way you could take all other types and trace them to
\nsome original intention in the Divine Force. Each is a diminution or caricature
\nof the type intended by the Divine, a mental and vital distortion of things
\nthat have a greater spiritual value. It is a wrong movement that creates the
\ndistortion or the caricature. Once this false impulsion is mastered, the right
\nattitude taken, the right movement found, all reveal their divine values. All
\nare justified by the truth that is in them, all equally important, equally
\nneeded, different but indispensable instruments of the Divine Manifestation. <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage -120<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\n
\n\u00a0<\/font><\/span>H<\/a><\/font><\/span>OME<\/font><\/a><\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a04 August 1929   Is not surrender the same as sacrifice?   In our Yoga there is no room for sacrifice. But everything depends on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[115],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-03-questions-and-answers-volume-03","wpcat-115-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3996","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=3996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3996\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}