{"id":4373,"date":"2013-07-13T01:55:33","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:55:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=4373"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:55:33","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:55:33","slug":"16-8-february-1951-vol-04-questions-and-answers-volume-04","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/02-works-of-the-mother\/01-cwmce\/04-questions-and-answers-volume-04\/16-8-february-1951-vol-04-questions-and-answers-volume-04","title":{"rendered":"-16_8 February 1951.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\n
\n8
\n February 1951<\/font><\/span><\/b> <\/font><\/span><\/b>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe
\nouter being is like a crust. In ordinary people the crust is so hard and thick
\nthat they are not conscious of the Divine within them. If once, even for a
\nmoment only, the inner being has said, `I am here and I am yours’, then it is
\nas though a bridge has been built and little by little the crust becomes
\nthinner and thinner until the two parts are wholly joined and the inner and the
\nouter become one.\u201d <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\nQuestions
\nand Answers 1929 (14 April) <\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Have you ever thought of unifying your being? Have you been
\ndisturbed, sometimes, to see that now you are one person, at other times
\nanother, at one time you want to do one thing, at another time you cannot do
\nit, that you find yourself facing an individuality which you can call yourself
\nand yet at the same time there are many parts of this individuality which
\nescape you?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

I
\nhave not attempted the unification of the different personalities which may be
\nin me, but I have tried to put them face to face, the good opposite the bad,
\nand I have never found in the good a sufficient dynamism to fight against the
\nbad. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Have you never thought that your judgment of what is \u201cgood\u201d and
\n\u201cbad\u201d was a purely human judgment? And that it might not necessarily tally with
\nthe judgment of the divine Presence within you? The \u201cbad\u201d things you could not
\nget rid of were probably things not in their place, things not properly
\nbalanced, and it would be a great pity if they were eliminated because,
\nperhaps, a part of your energy and of your divine Presence would disappear at
\nthe same time. People who do not do yoga <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 80<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\u00a0<\/span>under the direction of a
\nguide follow ordinary moral notions and at times they feel very perplexed
\nbecause with all their goodwill they do not get the expected result; that
\nhappens because generally they wish to approve of their being instead of
\ntransforming it and because moral notions are very bad. In the work of
\nunification of the being, you must needs have imagination enough to be able to
\nput the movements you have, the movements you wish to keep, to put them before
\nwhat you are capable of imagining as most akin to the divine Presence;
\nnaturally, at first it is only an imagination quite far from the truth, but it
\nwould help you to get out a little from moral narrowness and also from the
\nlimitations of your consciousness. For example, you have the idea of putting
\nwhat you are and what you do before a consciousness which is at once infinite
\nand eternal. These two words do not perhaps make much sense at the beginning,
\nbut they compel you to break the limits and to put yourself in front of
\nsomething which surpasses you so much on every side that its judgment cannot be
\nthe same as that of a human mentality. One must begin absolutely like that. If
\nyou try to analyse yourself according to moral principles, you may be sure of
\ngoing contrary to the divine plan. Not that the Divine is amoral, mark that,
\nbut this is not a kind of morality that mankind understands at all, it is not
\nthe same.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAmbition has been the undoing of many Yogis…<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cA
\nstory is told of a Yogi who had attained wonderful powers. He was invited by
\nhis disciples to a great dinner. It was served on a big low table. The
\ndisciples asked their Master to show his power in some way. He knew he should
\nnot, but the seed of ambition was there in him and he thought, `After all, it
\nis a very innocent thing and it may prove to them that such things are possible
\nand teach them the greatness of God.’ So he said, `Take away the table, but
\nonly the table, let the table-cloth remain as it is with all <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nPage – 81<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\u00a0<\/span>the dishes upon it.’ The disciples cried out,
\n`Oh, that cannot be done, everything will fall82down.’ But he insisted and they
\nremoved the table from under the cloth. Lo, the miracle! The cloth and all that
\nwas upon it remained there just as though the table was underneath. The
\ndisciples wondered. But all of a sudden the Master jumped up and rushed out
\nscreaming<\/span><\/i> and crying, `Nevermore shall I have a
\ndisciple, nevermore! Woe is me! I have betrayed my God.’ \u201c <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n


\nQuestions
\nand Answers 1929 (14 April) <\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

This is a temptation that every teacher meets at each step, for
\nthe very simple reason that ordinary humanity, in a general way, not being in personal
\ncontact with the divine powers, understands nothing of what an illumined
\nconsciousness may be and asks for material proofs. It is on this demand that
\nmost religions are established and, for reasons which I may very frankly call
\n\u201cpolitical\u201d, they have put at the origin of their religion a more or less
\nconsiderable number of miracles as having been performed by the founders, and
\nthey have thus more or less crudely encouraged among ignorant people the taste,
\nthe necessity for seeing what they call \u201cmiracles\u201d in order to believe in the
\ndivine power of a person. This is an extraordinary ignorance, because it is not
\nat all necessary to have a divine power or consciousness to perform miracles.
\nIt is infinitely more easy to perform miracles with the help of small entities
\nof the vital world who are material enough to be in touch with the physical
\nworld and act upon it, than to live in the consciousness of the higher regions
\nand to work upon Nature only through the intermediary of all the other domains.
\nIt has been repeated over and over again to all human intellects that the proof
\nof a being’s divinity is that he can raise the dead, cure maladies, and do many
\nother things of the same kind (except making a fool wise).\u00b9 Well, I <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n


\n\u00b9
\nMother added later: This is a Mohammedan story, I believe. As it was said that
\nJesus raised the dead, healed the sick, made the dumb speak, gave<\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 82<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

guarantee that this is not a proof; it proves only one thing, that
\nthese \u201cMasters\u201d are in contact with the powers of the vital world and that with
\nthe help of those beings they can perform these miracles, that’s all. If one
\nrelies upon that to recognise the superiority of a man, one would make a
\nglaring mistake. Naturally, there are other religions which are established on
\nrevelations made to their founders. These revelations are more or less happy
\nmental transcriptions of the knowledge they received. This is already of a
\nhigher order but it is not yet a proof. And I would finally say, the human
\ndemand for proofs is not at all favourable to one’s development. Because the
\ntrue divine power has organised the world according to a certain plan and in
\nthis plan there was no question of things happening in an illogical way;
\notherwise from the very beginning the world would have been illogical and it is
\nnot so. Men imagine for the most part one of two things, either that there is a
\nmaterial world to which they belong, that all comes from there, all returns
\nthere and all ends there \u2013 these are the unbelievers \u2013 or, the believers, most
\nof them, that there is something which they call \u201cGod\u201d and then the physical
\nworld, and that this physical world is the creation of that God who knows what
\nhe is doing or does what he wants; and the confusion lies in saying that
\neverything happens by a kind of arbitrariness, natural or supernatural. There
\nare very few people who know that there exists in the universe an infinite
\nnumber of gradations and that each one of these gradations has its own reality,
\nits own life, its own law, its own determinism, and that the creation did not
\ncome about \u201clike that\u201d, by an arbitrary will, in an arbitrary way but is a
\ndeploying of consciousness and each thing has evolved as a logical result of
\nthe preceding one. I am telling you all this as simply as I can, you see, it is
\na very incomplete expression, but if I wanted to tell you the story exactly as
\nit is, it would be a little difficult to make
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

————–<\/span><\/p>\n


\nsight
\nto the blind, one day an idiot was brought to him, to be made intelligent and
\nJesus ran away! \u201cWhy did you run away?\u201d he was asked. \u201cI can do everything,\u201d he
\nanswered, \u201cexcept give intelligence to an idiot.\u201d<\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 83<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

you understand. Only I would like you to know my conclusion (I
\nhave already spoken about it several times, more or less in detail), it is
\nthis: each one of these numberless regions has its own very logical determinism
\n\u2013 everything proceeds from cause to effect; but these worlds, although
\ndifferentiated, are not separate from each other and, by numerous processes
\nwhich we may study, the inner or higher worlds are in constant contact with the
\nlower or external worlds and act upon these, so that the determinism of one
\nchanges the determinism of the other. If you take the purely material domain,
\nfor instance, and if you notice that the material laws, the purely material
\nlaws are altered by something all of a sudden, you ought to say that it was a
\n\u201cmiracle\u201d, because there is a rupture of the determinism of one plane through
\nthe intervention of another, but usually we do not call this a miracle. For
\nexample, when the human will intervenes and changes something, that seems to
\nyou quite natural, because you have been accustomed to it from your childhood;
\nyou remember, don’t you, the example I gave you the other day: a stone falls
\naccording to the law of its own determinism, but you wish to interrupt its fall
\nand you stretch out your hand and catch it; well you ought to call this a
\n\u201cmiracle\u201d, but you don’t because you are used to it (but a rat or a dog would
\nperhaps call it a miracle if they could speak). And note that it is the same
\nfor what people call a \u201cmiracle\u201d; they speak of a \u201cmiracle\u201d because they are
\nabsolutely ignorant, unaware of the gradations between the will which wants to
\nexpress itself and the plane on which it expresses itself. When they have a
\nmental or a vital will, the thing seems quite natural to them, but when it is a
\nquestion of the will of a higher world \u2013 the world of the gods or of a higher
\nentity \u2013 which all of a sudden upsets all your little organisation, that seems
\nto you a miracle. But it is a miracle simply because you are unable to follow
\nthe gradations by which the phenomenon took place. Therefore, the Supreme Will,
\nthat which comes from the very highest region, if you saw it in its logical
\naction, if you were aware of it continually, it
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 84<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

would seem to you altogether natural. You can express this in two
\nways: either say, \u201cIt is quite natural, it is like this that things must
\nhappen, it is only an expression of the divine Will\u201d, or, each time you see on
\nthe material plane an intervention coming from another plane, you ought to say,
\n\u201cIt is miraculous!\u201d So I may say with certainty that people who want to see
\nmiracles are people who cherish their ignorance! You understand my logic, don’t
\nyou? These people love their ignorance, they insist upon seeing miracles and
\nbeing astounded! And that is why people who have done yoga seriously consider
\nit altogether fatal to encourage this tendency; hence it is forbidden.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>There is a \u201cmiracle\u201d because you do not give
\npeople time to see the procedure by which you do things, you do not show them
\nthe stages. Thus, some men have reached higher mental regions and do not need
\nto follow step by step all the gradations of thought; they can jump from one
\nidea to a far distant inference without the intermediary links; this is usually
\ncalled intuition (it is not altogether an \u201cintuition\u201d; it is that the idea, to
\nbegin with, is at a great height and from there these people can see while
\ndescending the whole totality of things and consequences without passing
\nthrough all the gradations as ordinary human thought is obliged to do). It is
\nan experience I have had; when I used to speak with Sri Aurobindo, we never had
\nthe need to go through intermediary ideas; he said one thing and I saw the far
\noff result; we used to talk always like that, and if a person had happened to
\nbe present at our conversations he would have said, \u201cWhat are they talking
\nabout!\u201d But for us, you know, it was as clear as a continuous sentence. You
\ncould call that a mental miracle \u2013 it was not a miracle, it was simply that Sri
\nAurobindo had the vision of the totality of mental phenomena and hence we had
\nno need to waste a good deal of time in going through all the gradations. For
\nany person capable of following the line, the thing would have been quite natural
\nand logical; for ignorant people it was a \u201cmiracle\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 85<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\u201cThey
\n[powers] have to be used in the same way as they came. They come by union with
\nthe Divine. They must be used by the will of the Divine and not for display.\u201d <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\nQuestions
\nand Answers 1929 (14 April)<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

If you use power to show that you possess it, it becomes so full
\nof falsehood and untruth that finally it disappears. But it is not always thus,
\nbecause, as I said at the beginning, when it concerns a power like the power of
\nhealing or the power of changing an altogether external thing \u2013 of making an
\nunfavourable circumstance favourable, of finding lost objects, all these
\ncountless little \u201cmiracles\u201d which are found in all religions \u2013 it is much more
\neasy and even more effective to do these \u201cmiracles\u201d with the help of the
\nentities of the vital world which are not always recommendable, far from it;
\nand then these beings make fun of you. This begins very well, very brilliantly,
\nand usually finishes very badly. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 <\/span>I
\nknow the story of a man who had a few small powers and indulged in all kinds of
\nso-called \u201cspiritualist\u201d practices, and through repeated exercises he had
\nsucceeded in coming into conscious contact with what he called a \u201cspirit\u201d. This
\nman was doing business; he was a financier and was even a speculator. His
\nrelations with his \u201cspirit\u201d were of a very practical kind! This spirit used to
\ntell him when the stocks and shares would go up and when they would come down;
\nit told him, \u201cSell this\u201d, \u201cBuy that\u201d \u2013 it gave him very precise financial particulars.
\nFor years he had been listening to his \u201cspirit\u201d and had followed it, and was
\nfantastically successful; he became tremendously rich and naturally boasted a
\nlot about the spirit which \u201cguided\u201d him. He used to tell everybody, \u201cYou see,
\nit is really worth while learning how to put oneself in contact with these
\nspirits.\u201d But one day he met a man who was a little wiser, who told him, \u201cTake
\ncare.\u201d He did not listen to him, he was swollen with his power and ambition.
\nAnd it was then that his \u201cspirit\u201d gave him a last advice, <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 86<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\u201dNow you can become the richest man in the world. Your ambition
\nwill be fulfilled. You have only to follow my direction. Do this: put all that
\nyou have into this transaction and you will become the richest man in the
\nworld.\u201d The stupid fool did not even realise the trap laid for him: for years
\nhe had followed his \u201cguide\u201d and succeeded, so he followed the last direction;
\nand he lost everything, to the last penny.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>So
\nyou see, these are small entities who make fun of you, and to make sure of you
\nthey work these little miracles to encourage you, and when they feel that you
\nare well trapped, they play a fine trick upon you and it is all over with you. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>We have said that
\nthere is only one safety, never to act except in harmony with the divine Will.
\nThere is one question: how to know that it is the divine Will which makes you
\nact? I replied to the person who put to me this question (although this person
\ndid not agree with me) that it is not difficult to distinguish the voice of the
\nDivine: one cannot make a mistake. You need not be very far on the path to be
\nable to recognise it; you must listen to the still, small peaceful voice which
\nspeaks in the silence of your heart. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span>I forgot one thing: to hear it you must be
\nabsolutely sincere, for if you are not sincere, you will begin by deceiving
\nyourself and you will hear nothing at all except the voice of your ego and then
\nyou will commit with assurance (thinking that it is the real small voice) the
\nmost awful stupidities. But if you are sincere, the way is sure. It is not even
\na voice, not even a sensation, it is something extremely subtle \u2013 a slight
\nindication. When everything goes well, that is, when you do nothing contrary to
\nthe divine Will, you will not perhaps have any definite impression, everything
\nwill seem to you normal. Of course, you should be eager to know whether you are
\nacting in accordance with the divine Will, that is the first point, naturally,
\nwithout which you can know nothing at all. But once you are eager and you pay
\nattention, everything seems to you normal, natural, then all of a sudden, you
\nfeel a little uneasiness
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 87<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

somewhere in the head, in the heart or even in the stomach \u2013
\ngenerally one doesn’t give it a thought; you may feel it several times in the
\nday but you reject it without giving it any attention; but it is no longer
\nquite the same; then, at that moment, you must stop, no matter what you may be
\ndoing, and look, and if you are sincere, you will notice a small black spot (a
\ntiny wicked idea, a tiny false movement, a small arbitrary decision) and that’s
\nthe source of the uneasiness. You will notice then that the little black spot
\ncomes from the ego which is full<\/i> of
\npreferences; generally it does what it likes; the things it likes are called
\ngood and those it does not are called bad \u2013 this clouds your judgment. It is
\ndifficult to judge under these conditions. If you truly want to know, you must
\ndraw back a step and look, and you will know then that it is this small movement
\nof the ego which is the cause of the uneasiness. You will see that it is a tiny
\nthing curled back upon itself; you will have the impression of being in front
\nof something hard which resists or is black. Then with patience, from the
\nheight of your consciousness, you must explain to this thing its mistake, and
\nin the end it will disappear. I do not say that you will succeed all at once
\nthe very first day, but if you try sincerely, you will always end with success.
\nAnd if you persevere, you will see that all of a sudden you are relieved of a
\nmass of meanness and ugliness and obscurity which was preventing you from
\nflowering in the light. It is those things which make you shrivel up, prevent
\nyou from widening yourself, opening out in a light where you have the
\nimpression of being very comfortable. If you make this effort, you will see
\nfinally that you are very far from the point where you had begun, the things
\nyou did not feel, did not understand, have become clear. If you are resolved,
\nyou are sure to succeed. <\/span><\/p>\n

This is the first step towards unifying
\nyourself, becoming a conscious being who has a central will and acts only
\naccording to this will, which will be a constant expression of the divine Will.
\nIt is worth trying. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span>And
\nI may tell you from my personal experience that there <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage –
\n88<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

is nothing in the world more interesting. If you begin making this
\neffort you will find that your life is full of interest \u2013 you know, of the
\nordinary life of people at least a third is a kind of dull boredom (I say a
\nthird, but for some two-thirds of the day is a dull boredom), and all that gets
\nvolatilised! Everything becomes so interesting, the least little thing, the
\nleast casual meeting, the least word exchanged, the least thing displaced \u2013
\neverything is full of life and interest.<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nPage – 89<\/font><\/p>\n

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

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