{"id":4038,"date":"2013-07-13T01:53:01","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:53:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=4038"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:53:01","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:53:01","slug":"16-the-ordinary-life-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\/16-the-ordinary-life-vol-03-questions-and-answers-volume-03","title":{"rendered":"-16_The Ordinary Life.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n


\nQuestions and Answers<\/span><\/font><\/b><\/p>\n


\n1930-1931<\/span><\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n
\n


\n
\nThe
\nOrdinary Life and the True Soul <\/font> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nT<\/font><\/span>he ordinary
\nlife is a round of various desires and greeds. As long as one is preoccupied with
\nthem, there can be no lasting progress. A way out of the round must be
\ndiscovered. Take, as an instance, that commonest preoccupation of ordinary life
\nthe constant thinking by people of what they will eat and when they will eat
\nand whether they are eating enough. To conquer the greed for food an equanimity
\nin the being must be developed such that you are perfectly indifferent towards
\nfood. If food is given you, you eat it; if not, it does not worry you in the
\nleast; above all, you do not keep thinking about food. And the thinking must
\nnot be negative, either. To be absorbed in devising methods and means of
\nabstinence as the sannyasis<\/i> do is to
\nbe almost as preoccupied with food as to be absorbed in dreaming of it
\ngreedily. Have an attitude of indifference towards it: that is the main thing.
\nGet the idea of food out of your consciousness, do not attach the slightest
\nimportance to it. <\/span><\/p>\n

This will be very easy to do once you get into contact with your
\npsychic being, the true soul deep within you. Then you will feel immediately
\nhow very unimportant these things are and that the sole thing that matters is
\nthe Divine. To dwell in the psychic is to be lifted above all greed. You will
\nhave no hankering, no worry, no feverish desire. And you will feel also that whatever
\nhappens, happens for the best. Do not misunderstand me to imply that you must
\nalways think that everything is for the best. Everything is not for the best so
\nlong as you are in the ordinary consciousness. You may be misled into utterly
\nwrong channels when you are not in the right state of consciousness. But once
\nyou are poised in the psychic and have made your self-offering to the Divine,
\nall that happens will happen for the best, for everything, however disguised,
\nwill be a definite divine response to you. <\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed the very act of genuine self-giving is its own immediate <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 123<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

reward \u2013 it
\nbrings with it such happiness, such confidence, such security as nothing else
\ncan give. But till the self-giving is firmly psychic there will be disturbances,
\nthe interval of dark moments between bright ones. It is only the psychic that
\nkeeps on progressing in an unbroken line, its movement a continuous ascension.
\nAll other movements are broken and discontinuous. And it is not till the
\npsychic is felt as yourself that you can be an individual even; for it is the
\ntrue self in you. Before the true self is known, you are a public place, not a
\nbeing. There are so many clashing forces working in you; hence, if you wish to
\nmake real progress, know your own being which is in constant union with the
\nDivine. Then alone will transformation be possible. All the other parts of your
\nnature are ignorant: the mind, for instance, often commits the mistake of
\nthinking that every brilliant idea is also a luminous idea. It can with equal
\nvigour trump up arguments for and against God: it has no infallible sense of
\nthe truth. The vital is generally impressed by any show of power and is willing
\nto see in it the Godlike. It is only the psychic which has a just discrimination:
\nit is directly aware of the supreme Presence, it infallibly distinguishes
\nbetween the divine and the undivine. If you have even for a moment contacted
\nit, you will carry with you a conviction about the Divine which nothing will
\nshake. <\/span><\/p>\n

How, you ask me, are we to know our true being? Ask for it, aspire
\nafter it, want it as you want nothing else. Most of you here are influenced by
\nit, but it should be more than an influence, you should be able to feel
\nidentified with it. All urge for perfection comes from it, but you are unaware
\nof the source, you are not collaborating with it knowingly, you are not in
\nidentification with its light. Do not think I refer to the emotional part of
\nyou when I speak of the psychic. Emotion belongs to the higher vital, not to the
\npure psychic. The psychic is a steady flame that burns in you, soaring towards
\nthe Divine and carrying with it a sense of strength which breaks down all
\noppositions. When you are identified with it you have the feeling of <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 124<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

the divine truth
\n\u2013 then you cannot help feeling also that the whole world is ignorantly walking
\non its head with its feet in the air! <\/span><\/p>\n

You must learn to unite what you call your individual self with
\nyour true psychic individuality. Your present individuality is a very mixed
\nthing, a series of changes which yet preserves a certain continuity, a certain
\nsameness or identity of vibration in the midst of all flux. It is almost like a
\nriver which is never the same and yet has a certain definiteness and
\npersistence of its own. Your normal self is merely a shadow of your true
\nindividuality which you will realise only when this normal individual which is
\ndifferently poised at different times, now in the mental, then in the vital, at
\nother times in the physical, gets into contact with the psychic and feels it as
\nits real being. Then you will be one, nothing will shake or disturb you, you
\nwill make steady and lasting progress and be above such petty things as greed
\nfor food.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 125<\/span><\/p>\n

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

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