{"id":4006,"date":"2013-07-13T01:52:50","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=4006"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:52:50","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:52:50","slug":"47-the-sage-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\/47-the-sage-vol-03-questions-and-answers-volume-03","title":{"rendered":"-47_The Sage.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\nThe Sage
\n<\/font> <\/span><\/i>
\n <\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

We
\nshould seek the company of the sage who shows us our faults, as if he were
\nshowing us a hidden treasure; it is best to cultivate relations with such a man
\nbecause he cannot be harmful to us. He will bring us only good. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

One
\nwho exhorts us to good and dissuades us from doing evil is appreciated,
\nesteemed by the just man and hated by the unjust. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Do
\nnot seek the company or friendship of men of base character, but let us consort
\nwith men of worth and let us seek friendship with the best among men. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

He
\nwho drinks directly from the source of the Teaching lives happy in serenity of
\nmind. The sage delights always in the Teaching imparted by the noble disciples
\nof the Buddha. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Those
\nwho build waterways lead the water where they want; those who make arrows
\nstraighten them; carpenters shape their wood; the sage controls himself. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

No
\nmore than a mighty rock can be shaken by the wind, can the sage be moved by
\npraise or blame. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The
\nsage who has steeped himself in the Teaching, becomes perfectly peaceful like a
\ndeep lake, calm and clear. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Wherever
\nhe may be, the true sage renounces all pleasures. Neither sorrow nor happiness
\ncan move him.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Page \u2013 219<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

Neither
\nfor his own sake, nor for the sake of others does the sage desire children,
\nriches or domains. He does not aim for his own success by unjust ways. Such a
\nman is virtuous, wise and just. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Few
\nmen cross to the other shore. Most men remain and do no more than run up and
\ndown along this shore. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

But
\nthose who live according to the Teaching cross beyond the realm of Death,
\nhowever difficult may be the passage. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The
\nsage will leave behind the dark ways of existence, but he will follow the way
\nof light. He will leave his home for the homeless life and in solitude will
\nseek the joy which is so difficult to find. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Having
\nrenounced all desires and attachments of the senses, the sage will cleanse
\nhimself of all the taints of the mind. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

One
\nwhose mind is well established in all the degrees of knowledge, who, detached
\nfrom all things, delights in his renunciation, and who has mastered his
\nappetites, he is resplendent, and even in this world he attains Nirvana.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>There is a sentence here
\nwhich is particularly felicitous. It is the very first sentence we have read,
\n\u201cWe should seek the company of the sage who shows our faults, as if he were
\nshowing us a hidden treasure.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

In all Scriptures meant to help mankind to
\nprogress, it is always said that you must be very grateful to those who show
\nyou your faults and so you must seek their company; but the form used here is
\nparticularly felicitous: if a fault is shown to <\/span>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 220<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

you it is as if a treasure were shown to you; that is to say, each
\ntime that you discover in yourself a fault, incapacity, lack of understanding,
\nweakness, insincerity, all that prevents you from making a progress, it is as
\nif you discovered a wonderful treasure. <\/span><\/p>\n

Instead of growing sad and telling
\nyourself, \u201cOh, there is still another defect\u201d, you should, on the contrary,
\nrejoice as if you had made a wonderful acquisition, because you have just
\ncaught hold of one of those things that prevented you from progressing. And
\nonce you have caught hold of it, pull it out! For those who practise a yogic
\ndiscipline consider that the moment you know that a thing should not be, you
\nhave the power to remove it, discard it, destroy it. <\/span><\/p>\n

To discover a fault is an acquisition. It
\nis as though a flood of light had come to replace the little speck of obscurity
\nwhich has just been driven out. <\/span><\/p>\n

When you follow a yogic discipline, you
\nmust not accept this weakness, this baseness, this lack of will, which means
\nthat knowledge is not immediately followed by power. To know that a thing
\nshould not be and yet continue to allow it to be is such a sign of weakness
\nthat it is not accepted in any serious discipline, it is a lack of will that
\nverges on insincerity. You know that a thing should not be and the moment you
\nknow it, you are the one who decides that it shall not be. For knowledge and
\npower are essentially the same thing \u2013 that is to say, you must not admit in
\nany part of your being this shadow of bad will which is in contradiction to the
\ncentral will for progress and which makes you impotent, without courage,
\nwithout strength in the face of an evil that you must destroy. <\/span><\/p>\n

To sin through ignorance is not a sin;
\nthat is part of the general evil in the world as it is, but to sin when you
\nknow, that is serious. It means that there is hidden somewhere, like a worm in
\nthe fruit, an element of bad will that must be hunted out and destroyed, at any
\ncost, because any weakness on such a point is the source of difficulties that
\nsometimes, later on, become irreparable.\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/span>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 221<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

So then the first thing is to be perfectly
\nhappy when someone or some circumstance puts you in the conscious presence of a
\nfault in yourself which you did not know. Instead of lamenting, you must
\nrejoice and in this joy must find the strength to get rid of the thing which
\nshould not be.  <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>21 March 1958<\/span><\/i> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 222<\/span><\/p>\n

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

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