{"id":4389,"date":"2013-07-13T01:55:39","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:55:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=4389"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:55:39","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:55:39","slug":"37-29-march-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\/37-29-march-1951-vol-04-questions-and-answers-volume-04","title":{"rendered":"-37_29 March 1951.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n


\n29 March 1951<\/font><\/b>
\n<\/font> <\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cThe articles and dogmas of a religion are
\nmind-made things and, if you cling to them and shut yourself up in a code of
\nlife made out for you, you do not know and cannot know the truth of the spirit
\nthat lies beyond all codes and dogmas, wide and large and free…<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cIn every religion there are some who have
\nevolved a high spiritual life. But it is not the religion that gave them their
\nspirituality; it is they who have put their spirituality into the religion. Put
\nanywhere else, born into any other cult, they would have found there and lived
\nthere the same spiritual life. It is their own capacity, it is some power of
\ntheir inner being and not the religion they profess that has made them what
\nthey are.\u201d <\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nQuestions and Answers 1929 (9 June) <\/font> <\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/i>             Are all religions mental constructions ? <\/i><\/p>\n

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

All religions were
\nperhaps not that in their beginning, but they have certainly become that with
\ntime. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What is the \u201cLittle Vehicle\u201d and the
\n\u201cGreat Vehicle\u201d ? <\/i><\/p>\n

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

These are Buddhist
\nterms. This is the translation of a Pali word, I
\nbelieve. It is said that the religion of the North is the \u201cGreat Vehicle\u201d and
\nthe religion of the South the \u201cLittle Vehicle\u201d. The Little Vehicle abides by
\nquite a strict teaching according to what has been preserved or is believed to
\nhave been preserved of the words of the Buddha. <\/p>\n

You know the
\nBuddha used to say that there was no God, there was no persistence of the ego,
\nthere were no beings of higher worlds who could incarnate here, there were
\nno…He denied <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 Page – 257<\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

 almost every
\npossible thing. The religion of the South is like that, it is extremely
\nnihilistic, it says no, no, no to everything; while in the religion of the
\nNorth, which has been practised in Tibet, and spread
\nfrom Tibet into China and from China to Japan, one finds the Bodhisattvas (who
\nstand for saints as in all other religions), all the previous Buddhas who are also like some sort of demigods or gods. I
\ndon’t know if you have ever had a chance to visit a Buddhist temple of the
\nNorth (I saw them in China and Japan), for you enter halls where there are
\ninnumerable statuettes \u2013 all the Bodhisattvas, all the disciples of those
\nBodhisattvas, all the forces of nature deified, indeed you are overwhelmed by
\nthe number of gods! On the other hand, if you go to the South, there is
\nnothing, not a single image. I believe they speak of the \u201cGreat Vehicle\u201d
\nbecause there are lots of things inside, and the \u201cLittle Vehicle\u201d because there
\nare few ! I don’t know exactly the origin of the two terms. <\/p>\n

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

\u201cThings have an inner value and become
\nreal to you only when you have acquired them by the exercise of your free
\nchoice, not when they have been imposed upon you. If you want to be sure of
\nyour religion, you must choose it; if you want to be sure of your country, you
\nmust choose it; if you want to be sure of your family, even that you must
\nchoose.\u201d <\/i><\/p>\n

Questions and Answers 1929 (9 June)
\n<\/font> <\/i><\/p>\n

What does \u201cchoose one’s family\u201d mean ? <\/i><\/p>\n

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

You have come into
\nthe world in a certain milieu, among certain people. When you are quite young,
\nbut for a few rare exceptions, what surrounds you seems altogether natural to
\nyou, because you are born in its midst and are quite used to it. But when, a
\nlittle later, a spiritual aspiration wakes up in you, you may quite possibly
\nfeel yourself completely ill at ease in the environment where you have lived,
\nif, for instance, the people who<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 Page – 258<\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

 \u00a0have brought you up don’t have the same
\naspiration or if their ideas are the very opposite of what is developing in
\nyou. Instead of saying, \u201cYou see, I belong to this family, what shall I do? I
\nhave a mother, a father, brothers, sisters…\u201d , you can set out in search (I
\ndon’t mean necessarily travel), set out in search of spirits who have an
\naffinity with yours, people who have a similar aspiration and, if you have the
\nsincere aspiration to find those who like you are in quest of something, you
\nwill always have the occasion to meet them in one way or another, through quite
\nunexpected circumstances; and when you have found one or more people who are in
\nexactly the same state of mind and have the same aspiration, quite naturally
\nthere will be created bonds of closeness, intimacy, friendship and, among you,
\nyou will form a kind of brotherhood, that is to say, a true family. You are
\ntogether because you are close to one another, you are together because you
\nhave the same aspiration, you are together because you want to create the same
\ngoal in life; you understand one another when you speak, you have no need to
\ndiscuss anything which is said and you live in a kind of inner harmony. This is
\nthe true family, this is the family of aspiration, the family of spiritual
\ninclinations. <\/p>\n

Now, about the
\ncountry, this may depend upon all sorts of things, this may depend upon a sort
\nof inner affinity. For instance, if you come to a country and there you find a
\nkind of response, an inner response to your aspiration, you find the
\nsurroundings more in conformity with your tastes, your tendencies, you may very
\nwell choose to live in this country, which is not necessarily that of your
\nbirth; and since you choose that country to live there, you may say, \u201cThis is
\nmy country.\u201d There are people, many people who go and settle elsewhere for very
\nmaterialistic and uninteresting reasons most of the time, but there are also
\nothers who are in search of an environment which suits their inner taste, their
\naspiration, or who seek lands, ways of living more in keeping with their deeper
\nnature; then they settle down somewhere and don’t move again, and when they
\nstay <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 Page – 259<\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

 there for a number
\nof years, they can really feel that this country is theirs, much more than the
\nhouse or village or city where they were born. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Is the vital distorted from the very birth
\n? <\/i><\/p>\n

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

If your birth has
\nnot been accidental, you could very well think there was no distortion, but
\nwhat you are at your birth is most of the time almost absolutely what your
\nmother and father have made you, and also, through them, what your grandparents
\nhave made you. There are certain vital traditions in families and, besides,
\nthere is the state of consciousness in which you were formed, conceived \u2013 the
\nmoment at which you were conceived \u2013 and that, not once in a million times does
\nthat state conform to true aspiration; and it is only a true aspiration which
\ncould make your vital pure of all mixture, make the vital element attracted for
\nthe formation of the being a pure element, free from all contagion; I mean that
\nif a psychic being enters there, it can gather elements favourable
\nto its growth. In the world as it is, things are so mixed up, have been so
\nmixed up in every way, that it is almost impossible to have elements of the
\nvital sufficiently pure not to suffer the contagion of all other contaminated
\nbeings. <\/p>\n

I think I have
\nalready spoken about that, I have said what kind of aspiration ought to be
\nthere in the parents before the birth; but as I said, this does not happen even
\nonce in a hundred thousand instances. The willed conception of a child is
\nextremely rare; mostly it is an accident. Among innumerable parents it is quite
\na small minority that even simply bothers about what a child could be; they do
\nnot even know that what the child will be depends on what they are. It is a
\nvery small \u00e9lite <\/i>which knows this. Most of the time
\nthings go as they can; anything at all happens and people don’t even realise what is happening. So, in these conditions how do
\nyou expect to be born with a vital being sufficiently pure to be of help to you
\n? One is <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n Page – 260<\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

 born with a slough
\nto clean before one begins to live. And once you have made a good start on the
\nway to the inner transformation and you go down to the subconscient root of the
\nbeing \u2013 that exactly which comes from parents, from atavism \u2013 well, you do see
\nwhat it is ! And all, almost all difficulties are there, there are very few
\nthings added to existence after the first years of life. This happens at any
\nodd moment; if you keep bad company or read bad books, the poison may enter
\nyou; but there are all the imprints deep-rooted in the subconscient, the dirty
\nhabits you have and against which you struggle. For instance, there are people
\nwho can’t open their mouth without telling a lie, and they don’t always do this
\ndeliberately (that is the worst of it), or people who can’t come in touch with
\nothers without quarrelling, all sorts of stupidities \u2013 they are there in the
\nsubconscient, deeply rooted. Now, when you have a goodwill, externally you do
\nyour best to avoid all that, to correct it if possible; you work, you fight;
\nthen become aware that this thing always keeps coming up, it comes up from some
\npart which escapes your control. But if you enter this subconscient, if you let
\nyour consciousness infiltrate it, and look carefully, gradually you will
\ndiscover all the sources, all the origins of all your difficulties; then you
\nwill begin to understand what your fathers and mothers, grandfathers and
\ngrandmothers were, and if at a certain moment you are unable to control
\nyourself, you will understand, \u201cI am like that because they were like that.\u201d <\/p>\n

If you have within
\nyou a psychic being sufficiently awake to watch over you, to prepare your path,
\nit can draw towards you things which help you, draw people, books,
\ncircumstances, all sorts of little coincidences which come to you as though
\nbrought by some benevolent will and give you an indication, a help, a support
\nto take decisions and turn you in the right direction. But once you have taken
\nthis decision, once you have decided to find the truth of your being, once you
\nstart sincerely on the road, then everything seems to conspire to help you to
\nadvance, and if you observe carefully you see gradually the source of <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage – 261<\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

 your difficulties:
\n\u201cAh! Wait a minute, this failing was in my father; oh! this habit was my
\nmother’s; oh! my grandmother was like this, my grandfather was like that.\u201d Or
\nit could well be the nurse who took care of you when you were small, or
\nbrothers and sisters who played with you, the little friends you met, and you
\nwill find that all this was there, in this person or that or the other. But if
\nyou continue to be sincere, you find you can cross all this quite calmly, and
\nafter a time you cut all the moorings with which you were born, break the
\nchains and go freely on the path. <\/p>\n

If you really want
\nto transform your character, it is that you must do. It has always been said
\nthat it is impossible to change one’s nature; in all books of philosophy, even
\nof yoga, you are told the same story: \u201cYou cannot change your character, you
\nare born like that, you are like that.\u201d This is absolutely false, I guarantee
\nit is false; but there is something very difficult to do to change your
\ncharacter, because it is not your character which must be changed, it is the
\ncharacter of your antecedents. In them you will not change it (because they
\nhave no such intention), but it is in you that it must be changed. It is what
\nthey have given you, all the little gifts made to you at your birth \u2013 nice
\ngifts \u2013 it is this which must be changed. But if you succeed in getting hold of
\nthe thread of these things, the true thread, since you have worked upon this
\nwith perseverance and sincerity, one fine morning you will be free; all this
\nwill fall off from you and you will be able to get a start in life without any
\nburden. Then you will be a new man, living a new life, almost with a new
\nnature. And if you look back you will say, \u201cIt is not possible, I was never
\nlike that \u201d <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 Page – 262<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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