{"id":4008,"date":"2013-07-13T01:52:50","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=4008"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:52:50","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:52:50","slug":"07-19-may-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\/07-19-may-1929-vol-03-questions-and-answers-volume-03","title":{"rendered":"-07_19 May 1929.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

\n19 May 1929 <\/font> <\/i> <\/span>
\n
\n <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

What
\nis the nature of the power that thought possesses? How and to what extent am I
\nthe creator of my world? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

According to the Buddhist teachings, every human being lives and
\nmoves in a world of his own, quite independent of the world in which another
\nlives; it is only when a certain harmony is created between these different
\nworlds that they interpenetrate and men can meet and understand one another.
\nThis is true of the mind; for everybody moves in a mental world of his own,
\ncreated by his own thoughts. And it is so true that always, when something has
\nbeen said, each understands it in a different way; for what he catches is not
\nthe thing that has been spoken but something he has in his own head. But it is
\na truth that belongs to the movement of the mental plane and holds good only
\nthere. <\/span><\/p>\n

For the mind is an instrument of action
\nand formation and not an instrument of knowledge; at each moment it is creating
\nforms. Thoughts are forms and have an individual life, independent of their
\nauthor: sent out from him into the world, they move in it towards the
\nrealisation of their own purpose of existence. When you think of anyone, your
\nthought takes a form and goes out to find him; and, if your thinking is
\nassociated with some will that is behind it, the thought-form that has gone out
\nfrom you makes an attempt to realise itself. Let us say, for instance, that you
\nhave a keen desire for a certain person to come and that, along with this vital
\nimpulse of desire, a strong imagination accompanies the mental form you have
\nmade; you imagine, \u201cIf he came, it would be like this or it would be like
\nthat.\u201d After a time you drop the idea altogether, and you do not know that even
\nafter you have forgotten it, your thought continues to exist. For it does still
\nexist and is in action, <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 50<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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independent of you, and it would need a great power to bring it
\nback from its work. It is working in the atmosphere of the person touched by it
\nand creates in him the desire to come. And if there is a sufficient power of will
\nin your thought-form, if it is a well-built formation, it will arrive at its
\nown realisation. But between the formation and the realisation there is a
\ncertain lapse of time, and if in this interval your mind has been occupied with
\nquite other things, then when there happens this fulfilment of your forgotten
\nthought, you may not even remember that you once harboured it; you do not know
\nthat you were the instigator of its action and the cause of what has come
\nabout. And it happens very often too that when the result does come, you have
\nceased to desire or care for it. There are some men who have a very strong
\nformative power of this kind and always they see their formations realised; but
\nbecause they have not a well-disciplined mental and vital being, they want now
\none thing and now another and these different or opposite formations and their
\nresults collide and clash with one another. And these people wonder how it is
\nthat they are living in so great a confusion and disharmony! They do not
\nrealise that it is their own thoughts and desires that have built the
\ncircumstances around them which seem to them so incoherent and contradictory
\nand make their life almost unbearable. <\/span><\/p>\n

This is a knowledge of great importance,
\nif it is given along with the secret of its right use. Self-discipline and
\nself-mastery are the secret; the secret is to find in oneself the source of the
\nTruth and that constant government of the Divine Will which can alone give to
\neach formation its full power and its integral and harmonious realisation. Men
\ngenerally form thoughts without knowing how these formations move and act.
\nFormed in this state of confusion and ignorance, they clash with one another
\nand create an impression of strain and effort and fatigue and the feeling that
\nyou are cutting your way through a multitude of obstacles. These conditions of
\nignorance and incoherence set in motion a confused conflict in which the
\nstrongest and the <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 51<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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most enduring forms will have victory over the others. <\/span><\/p>\n

There is one thing certain about the mind
\nand its workings; it is that you can understand only what you already know in
\nyour own inner self. What strikes you in a book is what you have already
\nexperienced deep within you. Men find a book or a teaching very wonderful and
\noften you hear them say, \u201cThat is exactly what I myself feel and know, but I
\ncould not bring it out or express it as well as it is expressed here.\u201d When men
\ncome across a book of true knowledge, each finds himself there, and at every
\nnew reading he discovers things that he did not see in it at first; it opens to
\nhim each time a new field of knowledge that had till then escaped him in it.
\nBut that is because it reaches layers of knowledge that were waiting for
\nexpression in the subconscious in him; the expression has now been given by
\nsomebody else and much better than he could himself have done it. But, once
\nexpressed, he immediately recognises it and feels that it is the truth. The
\nknowledge that seems to come to you from outside is only an occasion for
\nbringing out the knowledge that is within you.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The experience of misrepresentation of
\nsomething we have said is a very common one and it has a similar source. We say
\nsomething that is quite clear, but the way in which it is understood is
\nstupefying! Each sees in it something else than what was intended or even puts
\ninto it something that is quite the contrary of its sense. If you want to
\nunderstand truly and avoid this kind of error, you must go behind the sound and
\nmovement of the words and learn to listen in silence. If you listen in silence,
\nyou will hear rightly and understand rightly; but so long as there is something
\nmoving about and making a noise in your head, you will understand only what is
\nmoving in your head and not what is told you. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Why
\nis one pursued by a host of adverse conditions, when one first becomes
\nacquainted with Yoga? Someone has said that when you open the door to Yoga, <\/span><\/i>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 52<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

you
\nare confronted by a multitude of obstacles. Is this true? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

It is not an absolute rule; and much depends upon the person.
\nAdverse conditions come to many as a test for the weak points in their nature.
\nThe indispensable basis for Yoga, which must be well established before you can
\nwalk freely on the path, is equanimity. Naturally, from that point of view, all
\ndisturbances are tests which you have to pass. But they are necessary too in
\norder to break down the limits which your mental constructions have built
\naround you and which prevent your opening to the Light and the Truth. The whole
\nmental world in which you live is limited, even though you may not know or feel
\nits limitations, and something must come and break down this building in which
\nyour mind has shut itself and liberate it. For instance, you have some fixed
\nrules, ideas or principles to which you attribute an absolute importance; most
\noften it is an adherence to certain moral principles or precepts, such as the
\ncommandment \u201cHonour thy father and mother\u201d or \u201cThou shalt not kill\u201d and the
\nrest. Each man has some fad or one preferred shibboleth or another, each thinks
\nthat he is free from this or that prejudice from which others suffer and is
\nwilling to regard such notions as quite false; but he imagines that his is not
\nlike theirs, it is for him the truth, the real truth. An attachment to a rule of
\nthe mind is an indication of a blindness still hiding somewhere. Take, for
\nexample, the very universal superstition, prevalent all over the world, that
\nasceticism and spirituality are one and the same thing. If you describe someone
\nas a spiritual man or a spiritual woman, people at once think of one who does
\nnot eat or sits all day without moving, one who lives in a hut in great
\npoverty, one who has given away all he had and keeps nothing for himself. This
\nis the picture that immediately arises in the minds of ninety-nine people out
\nof a hundred, when you speak of a spiritual man; the one proof of spirituality
\nfor them is poverty and abstinence from everything that is pleasant or
\ncomfortable. This is
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 53<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

a mental construction which must be thrown down if you are to be
\nfree to see and follow the spiritual truth. For you come to the spiritual life
\nwith a sincere aspiration and you want to meet the Divine and realise the
\nDivine in your consciousness and in your life; and then what happens is that you
\narrive in a place which is not at all a hut and meet a Divine One who is living
\na comfortable life, eating freely, surrounded by beautiful or luxurious things,
\nnot distributing what he has to the poor, but accepting and enjoying all that
\npeople give him. At once with your fixed mental rule you are bewildered and
\ncry, \u201cWhy, what is this? I thought I was to meet a spiritual man!\u201d This false
\nconception has to be broken down and disappear. Once it is gone, you find
\nsomething that is much higher than your narrow ascetic rule, a complete
\nopenness that leaves the being free. If you are to get something, you accept
\nit, and if you are to give up the very same thing, you with an equal
\nwillingness leave it. Things come and you take them up; things go and you let
\nthem pass, with the same smile of equanimity in the taking or the leaving. <\/span><\/p>\n

Or, again, you have adopted as your golden
\nrule, \u201cThou shalt not kill\u201d, and have a horror for cruelty and slaughter. Do
\nnot be surprised if you are immediately put in the presence of killing, not
\nonly once but repeatedly, until you understand that your ideal is no more than
\na mental principle and that a seeker of the spiritual truth should not be bound
\nand attached to a mental rule. And when once you are free from it, you will
\nfind perhaps that all these scenes which troubled you \u2013 and were indeed sent in
\norder to trouble you and shake you out of your mental building\u00a0 <\/span>have, singularly enough, ceased altogether to
\nhappen in your presence. <\/span><\/p>\n

When you come to the Divine, you must
\nabandon all mental conceptions; but, instead of doing that, you throw your
\nconceptions upon the Divine and want the Divine to obey them. The only true
\nattitude for a Yogi is to be plastic and ready to obey the Divine Command
\nwhatever it may be; nothing must be <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 54<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

indispensable to him, nothing a burden. Often the first impulse of
\nthose who want to live the spiritual life is to throw away all they have; but
\nthey do it because they want to be rid of a burden, not because they want to
\nsurrender to the Divine. Men who possess wealth and are surrounded by the
\nthings that give them luxury and enjoyment turn to the Divine, and immediately
\ntheir movement is to run away from these things,\u00a0 <\/span>or, as they say, \u201cto escape from their bondage\u201d.
\nBut it is a wrong movement; you must not think that the things you have belong
\nto you,\u00a0 <\/span>they belong to the Divine. If
\nthe Divine wants you to enjoy anything, enjoy it; but be ready too to give it
\nup the very next moment with a smile. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

What
\nare physical ailments? Are they attacks by the hostile forces from outside? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

There are two factors that have to be considered in the matter.
\nThere is what comes from outside and there is what comes from your inner
\ncondition. Your inner condition becomes a cause of illness when there is a
\nresistance or revolt in it or when there is some part in you that does not
\nrespond to the protection; or even there may be something there that almost
\nwillingly and wilfully calls in the adverse forces. It is enough if there is a
\nslight movement of this kind in you; the hostile forces are at once upon you
\nand their attack takes often the form of illness. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

But
\nare not illnesses sometimes the result of microbes and not a part of the
\nmovement of the Yoga? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Where does Yoga begin and where does it end? Is not the whole of
\nyour life Yoga? The possibilities of illness are always there in your body and
\naround you; you carry within you or there swarm about you the microbes and
\ngerms of every disease. How is it that all of a sudden you succumb to an
\nillness which you did not have for years? You will say it is due to a
\n\u201cdepression
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 55<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

of the vital force\u201d. But from where does the depression come? It
\ncomes from some disharmony in the being, from a lack of receptivity to the
\ndivine forces. When you cut yourself off from the energy and light that sustain
\nyou, then there is this depression, there is created what medical science calls
\na \u201cfavourable ground\u201d and something takes advantage of it. It is doubt,
\ngloominess, lack of confidence, a selfish turning back upon yourself that cuts
\nyou off from the light and divine energy and gives the attack this advantage.
\nIt is this that is the cause of your falling ill and not microbes. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

But
\nhas it not been found that by improved sanitation the health of the average
\ncitizen improves? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Medicine and sanitation are indispensable in the ordinary life,
\nbut I am not speaking now of the average citizen, I am speaking of those who do
\nYoga. Still there is this disadvantage of sanitation that while you diminish
\nthe chances of catching an illness, you diminish also your natural power of
\nresistance. Attendants in hospitals, who are always washing with disinfectants,
\nfind that their hands become more easily infected and are much more susceptible
\nthan the hands of others. There are people, on the contrary, who know nothing
\nof hygiene and do the most insanitary things and yet remain immune. Their very
\nignorance helps them because it shuts them to the suggestions that come with
\nmedical knowledge. On the other hand, your belief in the sanitary precautions
\nyou take helps them to work. For your thought is, \u201cNow I am disinfected and
\nsafe\u201d, and to that extent it makes you safe. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

But
\nwhy then are we to take sanitary precautions such as drinking only filtered
\nwater? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Is any one of you pure and strong enough not to be affected by
\nsuggestions? If you drink unfiltered water and think, \u201cNow I
\n <\/span><\/p>\n


\nPage
\n\u2013 56<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

am drinking impure water\u201d, you have every chance of falling sick.
\nAnd even though such suggestions may not enter through the conscious mind, the
\nwhole of your subconscious is there, almost helplessly open to take any kind of
\nsuggestion. In life it is the action of the subconscious that has the larger
\nshare and it acts a hundred times more powerfully than the conscious parts. The
\nnormal human condition is a state filled with apprehensions and fears; if you
\nobserve your mind deeply for ten minutes, you will find that for nine out of
\nten it is full of fears \u2013 it carries in it fear about many things, big and
\nsmall, near and far, seen and unseen, and though you do not usually take
\nconscious notice of it, it is there all the same. To be free from all fear can
\ncome only by steady effort and discipline. <\/span><\/p>\n

And even if by discipline and effort you
\nhave liberated your mind and your vital of apprehension and fear, it is more difficult
\nto convince the body. But that too must be done. Once you enter the path of
\nYoga you must get rid of all fears\u00a0 <\/span>– the
\nfears of your mind, the fears of your vital, the fears of your body which are
\nlodged in its very cells. One of the uses of the blows and knocks you receive
\non the path of Yoga is to rid you of all fear. The causes of your fears leap on
\nyou again and again, until you can stand before them free and indifferent,
\nuntouched and pure. One has a fear of the sea, another fear of fire. The latter
\nwill find, it may be, that he has to face conflagration after conflagration
\ntill he is so trained that not a cell of his body quivers. That of which you
\nhave horror comes repeatedly till the horror is gone. One who seeks the
\ntransformation and is a follower of the Path, must become through and through
\nfearless, not to be touched or shaken by anything whatever in any part of his
\nnature.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 57<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

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

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