{"id":4036,"date":"2013-07-13T01:53:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=4036"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:53:00","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:53:00","slug":"04-28-april-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\/04-28-april-1929-vol-03-questions-and-answers-volume-03","title":{"rendered":"-04_28 April 1929.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\n
\n\u00a0<\/font><\/span>28 April 1929<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/b> <\/font> <\/i> <\/b> <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

It has been said that in
\norder to progress in Yoga one must offer up everything to the Divine, even
\nevery little thing that one has or does in life. What is precisely the meaning
\nof that? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Yoga means
\nunion with the Divine, and the union is effected through offering is \u2013 founded
\non the offering of yourself to the Divine. In the beginning you start by making
\nthis offering in a general way, as though once for all; you say, \u201cI am the
\nservant of the Divine; my life is given absolutely to the Divine; all my
\nefforts are for the realisation of the Divine Life.\u201d But that is only the first
\nstep; for this is not sufficient. When the resolution has been taken, when you
\nhave decided that the whole of your life shall be given to the Divine, you have
\nstill at every moment to remember it and carry it out in all the details of
\nyour existence. You must feel at every step that you belong to the Divine; you
\nmust have the constant experience that, in whatever you think or do, it is
\nalways the Divine Consciousness that is acting through you. You have no longer
\nanything that you can call your own; you feel everything as coming from the
\nDivine, and you have to offer it back to its source. When you can realise that,
\nthen even the smallest thing to which you do not usually pay much attention or
\ncare, ceases to be trivial and insignificant; it becomes full of meaning and it
\nopens up a vast horizon beyond.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This is what you have to do to carry out your general offering in
\ndetailed offerings. Live constantly in the presence of the Divine; live in the
\nfeeling that it is this presence which moves you and is doing everything you
\ndo. Offer all your movements to it, not only every mental action, every thought
\nand feeling but even the most ordinary and external actions such as eating;
\nwhen you eat, you must feel that it is the Divine who is eating <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 23<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

through you.
\nWhen you can thus gather all your movements into the One Life, then you have in
\nyou unity instead of division. No longer is one part of your nature given to
\nthe Divine, while the rest remains in its ordinary ways, engrossed in ordinary
\nthings; your entire life is taken up, an integral transformation is gradually
\nrealised in you. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the integral Yoga, the integral life down even to the smallest
\ndetail has to be transformed, to be divinised. There is nothing here that is
\ninsignificant, nothing that is indifferent. You cannot say, \u201cWhen I am
\nmeditating, reading philosophy or listening to these conversations I will be in
\nthis condition of an opening towards the Light and call for it, but when I go
\nout to walk or see friends I can allow myself to forget all about it.\u201d To
\npersist in this attitude means that you will remain untransformed and never
\nhave the true union; always you will be divided; you will have at best only
\nglimpses of this greater life. For although certain experiences and
\nrealisations may come to you in meditation or in your inner consciousness, your
\nbody and your outer life will remain unchanged. An inner illumination that does
\nnot take any note of the body and the outer life, is of no great use, for it
\nleaves the world as it is. This is what has continually happened till now. Even
\nthose who had a very great and powerful realisation withdrew from the world to
\nlive undisturbed in inner quiet and peace; the world was left to its ways, and
\nmisery and stupidity, Death and Ignorance continued, unaffected, their reign on
\nthis material plane of existence. For those who thus withdraw, it may be
\npleasant to escape from this turmoil, to run away from the difficulty and to
\nfind for themselves a happy condition elsewhere; but they leave the world and
\nlife uncorrected and untransformed; and their own outer consciousness too they
\nleave unchanged and their bodies as unregenerate as ever. Coming back to the
\nphysical world, they are likely to be worse there than even ordinary people;
\nfor they have lost the mastery over material things, and their dealing with
\nphysical life is likely to be slovenly and helpless in its <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 24<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

movements\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>and at the mercy of every passing
\nforce.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

An ideal of this kind may be good for those who want it, but it is
\nnot our Yoga. For we want the divine conquest of this world, the conquest of
\nall its movements and the realisation of the Divine here. But if we want the
\nDivine to reign here we must give all we have and are and do here to the
\nDivine. It will not do to think that anything is unimportant or that the
\nexternal life and its necessities are no part of the Divine Life. If we do, we
\nshall remain where we have always been and there will be no conquest of the
\nexternal world; nothing abiding there will have been done. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Do people who have
\nadvanced very far come back to this plane? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Yes; if
\nthere is a will in them to change this plane, then the more advanced they are,
\nthe surer they are to come back. And as for those who have the will of running
\naway, even they, when they go over to the other side, may find that the flight
\nwas not of much use after all. <\/span><\/p>\n

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

Do many remember that
\nthey have passed over and are back again? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

When you
\nreach a certain state of consciousness, you remember. It is not so difficult to
\ntouch this state partially for a short time; in deep meditation, in a dream or
\na vision one may have the feeling or the impression that he has lived this life
\nbefore, had this realisation, known these truths. But this is not a full
\nrealisation; to come to that, one must have attained to a permanent
\nconsciousness within us which is everlasting and holds together all our
\nexistences in past or present or future time. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

When we are concentrated
\nin mental movements or intellectual pursuits, why do we sometimes forget or <\/span><\/i>
\n
\n
\n <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 25<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

lose touch with the
\nDivine? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

You lose it
\nbecause your consciousness is still divided. The Divine has not settled into
\nyour mind; you are not wholly consecrated to the Divine Life. Otherwise you
\ncould concentrate to any extent upon such things and still you would have the
\nsense of being helped and supported by the Divine. <\/span><\/p>\n

In all pursuits, intellectual or active, your one motto should be,
\n\u201cRemember and Offer.\u201d Let whatever you do be done as an offering to the Divine.
\nAnd this too will be an excellent discipline for you; it will prevent you from
\ndoing many foolish and useless things. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Often in the beginning
\nof the action this can be done; but as one gets engrossed in the work, one
\nforgets. How is one to remember? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>The condition to be aimed at, the real
\nachievement of Yoga, the final perfection and attainment, for which all else is
\nonly a preparation, is a consciousness in which it is impossible to do anything
\nwithout the Divine; for then, if you are without the Divine, the very source of
\nyour action disappears; knowledge, power, all are gone. But so long as you feel
\nthat the powers you use are your own, you will not miss the Divine support. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the beginning of the Yoga you are apt to forget the Divine very
\noften. But by constant aspiration you increase your remembrance and you
\ndiminish the forgetfulness. But this should not be done as a severe discipline
\nor a duty; it must be a movement of love and joy. Then very soon a stage will
\ncome when, if you do not feel the presence of the Divine at every moment and
\nwhatever you are doing, you feel at once lonely and sad and miserable. <\/span><\/p>\n

Whenever you find that you can do something without feeling the
\npresence of the Divine and yet be perfectly comfortable, you must understand
\nthat you are not consecrated in that part <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 26<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

of your
\nbeing. That is the way of the ordinary humanity which does not feel any need of
\nthe Divine. But for a seeker of the Divine Life it is very different. And when
\nyou have entirely realised unity with the Divine, then, if the Divine were only
\nfor a second to withdraw from you, you would simply drop dead; for the Divine
\nis now the Life of your life, your whole existence, your single and complete
\nsupport. If the Divine is not there, nothing is left. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

In the initial stages of
\nYoga, is it well for the Sadhak to read ordinary books? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

You can read
\nsacred books and yet be far away from the Divine; and you can read the most
\nstupid productions and be in touch with the Divine. It is not possible to get
\nan idea of what the transformed consciousness and its movements are until you
\nhave had a taste of the transformation. There is a way of consciousness in
\nunion with the Divine in which you can enjoy all you read, as you can all you
\nobserve, even the most indifferent books or the most uninteresting things. You
\ncan hear poor music, even music from which one would like to run away, and yet
\nyou can, not for its outward self but because of what is behind, enjoy it. You
\ndo not lose the distinction between good music and bad music, but you pass
\nthrough either into that which it expresses. For there is nothing in the world
\nwhich has not its ultimate truth and support in the Divine. And if you are not
\nstopped by the appearance, physical or moral or aesthetic, but get behind and
\nare in touch with the Spirit, the Divine Soul in things, you can reach beauty
\nand delight even through what affects the ordinary sense only as something
\npoor, painful or discordant. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Can it be said in
\njustification of one’s past that whatever has happened in one’s life had to
\nhappen?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Obviously,
\nwhat has happened had to happen; it would not have
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 27<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

been, if it
\nhad not been intended. Even the mistakes that we have committed and the
\nadversities that fell upon us had to be, because there was some necessity in
\nthem, some utility for our lives. But in truth these things cannot be explained
\nmentally and should not be. For all that happened was necessary, not for any
\nmental reason, but to lead us to something beyond what the mind imagines. But
\nis there any need to explain after all? The whole universe explains everything
\nat every moment and a particular thing happens because the whole universe is
\nwhat it is. But this does not mean that we are bound over to a blind
\nacquiescence in Nature’s inexorable law. You can accept the past as a settled
\nfact and perceive the necessity in it, and still you can use the experience it
\ngave you to build up the power consciously to guide and shape your present and
\nyour future. <\/span><\/p>\n

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

Is the time also of an
\noccurrence arranged in the Divine Plan of things? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

All depends
\nupon the plane from which one sees and speaks. There is a plane of divine
\nconsciousness in which all is known absolutely, and the whole plan of things
\nforeseen and predetermined. That way of seeing lives in the highest reaches of
\nthe Supramental; it is the Supreme’s own vision. But when we do not possess
\nthat consciousness, it is useless to speak in terms that hold good only in that
\nregion and are not our present effective way of seeing things. For at a lower
\nlevel of consciousness nothing is realised or fixed beforehand; all is in the
\nprocess of making. Here there are no settled facts, there is only the play of
\npossibilities; out of the clash of possibilities is realised the thing that has
\nto happen. On this plane we can choose and select; we can refuse one
\npossibility and accept another; we can follow one path, turn away from another.
\nAnd that we can do, even though what is actually happening may have been
\nforeseen and predetermined in a higher plane.\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Supreme Consciousness knows everything beforehand, <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 28<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

because
\neverything is realised there in her eternity. But for the sake of her play and
\nin order to carry out actually on the physical plane what is foreordained in
\nher own supreme self, she moves here upon earth as if she did not know the
\nwhole story; she works as if it was a new and untried thread that she was
\nweaving. It is this apparent forgetfulness of her own foreknowledge in the
\nhigher consciousness that gives to the individual in the active life of the
\nworld his sense of freedom and independence and initiative. These things in him
\nare her pragmatic tools or devices, and it is through this machinery that the
\nmovements and issues planned and foreseen elsewhere are realised here. <\/span><\/p>\n

It may help you to understand if you take the example of an actor.
\nAn actor knows the whole part he has to play; he has in his mind the exact
\nsequence of what is to happen on the stage. But when he is on the stage, he has
\nto appear as if he did not know anything; he has to feel and act as if he were
\nexperiencing all these things for the first time, as if it was an entirely new
\nworld with all its chance events and surprises that was unrolling before his
\neyes. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Is there then no real
\nfreedom? Is everything absolutely determined, even your freedom, and is
\nfatalism the highest secret? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Freedom and
\nfatality, liberty and determinism are truths that obtain on different levels of
\nconsciousness. It is ignorance that makes the mind put the two on the same
\nlevel and pit one against the other. Consciousness is not a single uniform
\nreality, it is complex; it is not something like a flat plain, it is
\nmultidimensional. On the highest height is the Supreme and in the lowest depth
\nis matter; and there is an infinite gradation of levels of consciousness
\nbetween this lowest depth and the highest height. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the plane of matter and on the level of the ordinary
\nconsciousness you are bound hand and foot. A slave to the mechanism <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 29<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

of Nature,
\nyou are tied to the chain of Karma, and there, in that chain, whatever happens
\nis rigorously the consequence of what has been done before. There is an
\nillusion of independent movement, but in fact you repeat what all others do,
\nyou echo Nature’s world-movements, you revolve helplessly on the crushing wheel
\nof her cosmic machine. <\/span><\/p>\n

But it need not be so. You can shift your place if you will;
\ninstead of being below, crushed in the machinery or moved like a puppet, you
\ncan rise and look from above and by changing your consciousness you can even
\nget hold of some handle to move apparently inevitable circumstances and change
\nfixed conditions. Once you draw yourself up out of the whirlpool and stand high
\nabove, you see you are free. Free from all compulsions, not only you are no
\nlonger a passive instrument, but you become an active agent. You are not only
\nnot bound by the consequences of your action, but you can even change the
\nconsequences. Once you see the play of forces, once you raise yourself to a
\nplane of consciousness where lie the origins of forces and identify yourself
\nwith these dynamic sources, you belong no longer to what is moved but to that
\nwhich moves. <\/span><\/p>\n

This precisely is the aim of Yoga, \u2013 to get out of the cycle of
\nKarma into a divine movement. By Yoga you leave the mechanical round of Nature
\nin which you are an ignorant slave, a helpless and miserable tool, and rise
\ninto another plane where you become a conscious participant and a dynamic agent
\nin the working out of a Higher Destiny. This movement of the consciousness
\nfollows a double line. First of all there is an ascension; you raise yourself
\nout of the level of material consciousness into superior ranges. But this
\nascension of the lower into the higher calls a descent of the higher into the
\nlower. When you rise above the earth, you bring down too upon earth something
\nof the above, \u2013 some light, some power that transforms or tends to transform
\nits old nature. And then these things that were distinct, disconnected and disparate
\nfrom each other \u2013 the higher in you and the lower, the inner and the outer
\nstrata of <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

Page \u2013 30<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

your being
\nand consciousness\u00a0 <\/span>meet and are slowly
\njoined together and gradually they fuse into one truth, one harmony. <\/span><\/p>\n

It is in this way that what are called miracles happen. The world
\nis made up of innumerable planes of consciousness and each has its own distinct
\nlaws; the laws of one plane do not hold good for another. A miracle is nothing
\nbut a sudden descent, a bursting forth of another consciousness and its powers
\n\u2013 most often it is the powers of the vital \u2013 into this plane of matter. There
\nis a precipitation, upon the material mechanism, of the mechanism of a higher
\nplane. It is as though a lightning flash tore through the cloud of our ordinary
\nconsciousness and poured into it other forces, other movements and sequences.
\nThe result we call a miracle, because we see a sudden alteration, an abrupt
\ninterference with the natural laws of our own ordinary range, but the reason
\nand order of it we do not know or see, because the source of the miracle lies
\nin another plane. Such incursions of the worlds beyond into our world of matter
\nare not very uncommon, they are even a constant phenomenon, and if we have eyes
\nand know how to observe we can see miracles in abundance. Especially must they
\nbe constant among those who are endeavouring to bring down the higher reaches
\ninto the earth-consciousness below. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Has creation a definite
\naim? Is there something like a final end to which it is moving? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

No, the universe
\nis a movement that is eternally unrolling itself. There is nothing which you
\ncan fix upon as\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>the\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>end and one aim. But for the sake of action
\nwe have to section the movement, which is itself unending, and to say that this
\nor that is the goal, for in action we need something upon which we can fix our
\naim. In a picture you need a definite scheme of composition and colour; you
\nhave to set a limit, to put the whole thing within a fixed framework; but the
\nlimit is illusory, the frame is a mere convention. There is a constant
\ncontinuation of
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 31<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

the picture
\nthat\u00a0 <\/span>stretches beyond any particular
\nframe, and each continuation can be drawn in the same conditions in an unending
\nseries of frames. Our aim is this or that, we say, but we know that it is only
\nthe beginning of another aim beyond it, and that in its turn leads to yet
\nanother; the series develop always and never stop.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 32<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\n
\n <\/font><\/span>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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