{"id":4507,"date":"2013-07-13T01:56:29","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:56:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=4507"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:56:29","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:56:29","slug":"06-08-february-1956-vol-08-questions-and-answers-volume-08","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/02-works-of-the-mother\/01-cwmce\/08-questions-and-answers-volume-08\/06-08-february-1956-vol-08-questions-and-answers-volume-08","title":{"rendered":"-06_08 February 1956.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\n8 February 1956 <\/font>
\n <\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Sweet Mother, I have not
\nunderstood this: \u201cAt best we have only the poor relative freedom which by us is
\nignorantly called free will. But that is at bottom illusory, since it is the
\nmodes of Nature that express themselves through our personal will; it is force
\nof Nature, grasping us, ungrasped by us that determines what we shall will or
\nhow we shall will it. Nature, not an independent ego, chooses what object we
\nshall seek, whether by reasoned will or unreflecting impulse, at any moment of
\nour existence.\u201d <\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 88<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/span>Not understood? What do you mean, \u201cnot understood\u201d? It\u2019s a fact,
\nthere is nothing to understand, it\u2019s like that. <\/span><\/p>\n

 I have explained this to
\nyou I don\u2019t know how many times. You think it is you who decide: these are
\nimpulses coming from outside. You think you are conscious of your will: it is a
\nconsciousness which is not yours. And everything\u2026 you are made up entirely of
\nsomething which is the force of Nature expressing a higher Will of which you
\nare unconscious.<\/span><\/p>\n

 Only, one doesn\u2019t
\nunderstand this except when one can come out of one\u2019s ego, though it be only
\nfor a moment; for the ego \u2014 and this is its strength \u2014 his convinced that it
\nalone decides. But if one looks attentively, one notices that it is moved by
\nall sorts of things which are not itself. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

But then what is mental and
\nvital will? <\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

That is an expression of something which is not personal. <\/span><\/p>\n

 If you analyse carefully,
\nyou see, for instance, that all that you think has been thought by others, that
\nthese are things which circulate and s through you, but you have not produced
\nthis
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nPage – 51<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

thought, you are not the originator of this thought. All your
\nreactions come from atavism, from those who gave you birth and from the
\nenvironment in which you have lived, from all the impressions which have
\naccumulated in you and constituted something which seems to you yourself, yet
\nwhich is not produced by you, but merely felt and experienced; you become aware
\nof it in sing, but it is not you who created it, not you who gave it birth. <\/span><\/p>\n

 It could be said that
\nthese are like sounds \u2014 any kind of sounds: words, music, anything \u2014 recorded
\nby an instrument, then reproduced by another instrument which plays them back
\nlike a gramophone, for instance. You wouldn\u2019t say that the gramophone has
\ncreated the sound you hear, would you? That would never occur to you. But as
\nyou are under the illusion of your separate personality, these thoughts which
\ncross your mind and find expression, these feelings which s through your vital
\nand find expression, you think, have e from you; but nothing comes from you.
\nWhere is the \u201cyou\u201d which can create all that? <\/span><\/p>\n

 You must go deep, deep
\nwithin, and find the eternal essence of your being to know the creative reality
\nin yourself. And once you have found that, you will realise that it is one
\nsingle thing, the same in all others, and so where is your separate
\npersonality? Nothing\u2019s left any longer. <\/span><\/p>\n

 Yes, these are recording
\nand reproducing instruments, and there are always what might be called
\ndistortions \u2014 they may be distortions for the better, they may be distortions
\nfor the worse, they may be fairly great changes; the inner combinations are
\nsuch that things are not reproduced exactly as they passed from one to the
\nother because the instrument is very complex. But it is one and the same thing
\nwhich is moved by a conscious will, quite independent of all personal wills. <\/span><\/p>\n

 When the Buddha wanted to
\nmake his disciples understand these things, he used to tell them: every time
\nyou send out a vibration, a desire for example, the desire for some particular <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nPage – 52<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/span>thing, your desire starts
\ncirculating from one person to another, from one to another across the universe
\nand will go right round and come back to you. And as it is not only one thing
\nbut a world of things, and as you are not the only transmitting center \u2014 all
\nindividuals are transmitting centers \u2014 it is such a confusion that you lose
\nyour bearings in there. But these vibrations move about in a single, absolutely
\nidentical field; it is only the complication and interception of the vibrations
\nwhich give you the impression of something independent or separate. <\/span><\/p>\n

 But there\u2019s nothing
\nseparate or independent; there is only one<\/i> <\/b>Substance, one<\/i> Force, one<\/i>
\nConsciousness,\u00a0 <\/span>one<\/i> Will, which moves in countless ways of being. <\/span><\/p>\n

 And it is so complicated
\nthat one is no longer aware of it, but if one steps back and follows the
\nmovement, no matter which line of movement, one can see very clearly that the
\nvibrations propagate themselves, one following another, one following another,
\none following another, and that in fact there is only one unity \u2014 unity of
\nSubstance, unity of Consciousness, unity of Will. And that is the only reality.
\nOutwardly there is a kind of illusion: the illusion of separation and the
\nillusion of difference.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Desires and all those things
\nalso? <\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

This is not personal. Not at all personal. And that is very<\/i> easy to find out; of all things
\nthis is the easiest to discern, because ninety times out of a hundred it comes
\nto you from someone else or from a certain circumstance or a set of
\ncircumstances, or from a vibration coming from another person or several other
\npeople. It is very easy to discern, it is the first thing one can discern: it
\nis a vibration which suddenly awakens something similar in you. You know,
\nsomething makes an impact on you, and this impact brings up a response, as when
\nyou play a note. Well, this vibration of desire comes and strikes you in a certain
\nway and you respond. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nPage – 53<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 It is not very difficult
\nto discern; even when one is very young, even when one is a child, if one pays
\nattention, one becomes aware of this. One lives amidst constant collective
\nsuggestions, constantly; for example, I don\u2019t know if you have been present at
\nfunerals, or if you have been in a house where someone has died \u2014 naturally you
\nmust observe yourself a little, otherwise you won\u2019t notice anything \u2014 but if
\nyou observe yourself a little, you will see that you had no special reason to
\nfeel any sorrow or grief whatever for the sing away of this person; he is a
\nperson like many others; this has happened and by a combination of social
\ncircumstances you have come to that house. And there, suddenly, without knowing
\nwhy or how, you feel a strong emotion, a great sorrow, a deep pain, and you ask
\nyourself, \u201cWhy am I so unhappy?\u201d It is quite simply the vibrations which have
\nentered you, nothing else. <\/span><\/p>\n

 And I tell you it is easy
\nto observe, for it is an experience I had when I was a little child \u2014 and at
\nthat time I was not yet doing conscious yoga; perhaps I was doing yoga but not
\nconsciously \u2014 and I observed it very, very clearly. I told myself, \u201cSurely it
\nis their sorrow I am feeling, for I have no reason to be specially affected by
\nthis person\u2019s death\u201d; and all of a sudden, tears came to my eyes, I felt as
\nthough a lump were in my throat and I wanted to cry, as though I were in great
\nsorrow \u2014 I was a small child \u2014 and immediately I understood, \u201cOh! it is their
\nsorrow which has come inside me.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

 It is the same thing for
\nanger. It is very clear, one receives it suddenly, not even from a person, from
\nthe atmosphere \u2014 it is there \u2014 and then all of a sudden it enters you and
\nusually it gets hold of you from below and then rises up and pushes you, and so
\noff you go. A minute earlier you were not angry, you were quite self-possessed,
\nyou had no intention of losing your temper. And this seizes you so strongly
\nthat you can\u2019t resist \u2014 because you are not sufficiently conscious, you let it
\nenter you, and it makes use of you \u2013 you\u2026 what you call \u201cyourself\u201d, that is to
\nsay, your body; for apparently (I say apparently) it
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nPage – 54<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

is something separate from your neighbour\u2019s body. But that is
\nonly an optical illusion, because in fact all the time there are what may be
\ncalled particles, even physical particles, like a sort of radiation which comes
\nout of the body and gets mixed with others; and because of this, when one is
\nvery sensitive, one can feel things at a distance. <\/span><\/p>\n

 It is said, for instance,
\nthat the blind develop such a sensitivity, so delicate a sense-perception, that
\nwhen they are nearing an object they feel an impact at a distance. But one can
\nquite easily make the experiment. For example, drawing near to someone without
\nmaking any noise, then bringing one\u2019s hand quite close \u2014 sensitive people feel
\nit at once. You haven\u2019t put your will for them to feel it, you haven\u2019t brought
\nin any psychological element, you have only made a purely physical experiment
\nof approaching noiselessly and without being heard \u2014 a sensitive person will
\nfeel it at once. <\/span><\/p>\n

 That means that the body
\nseems to end there, but it\u2019s simply the way our eyes are made. If we had a
\nlittle more subtle vision, with a little wider range, well, we would see that
\nthere is something which comes out, as something comes out from other bodies \u2014
\nand that all this gets mixed up and interacts. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

What does Sri Aurobindo mean by
\n\u201coneness in dynamic force\u201d?<\/span><\/i><\/b> <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s what I was saying. There is a dynamic force which moves all
\nthings, and when you become conscious of it, you see that it is one single
\nForce which moves all things; and as you become conscious, you can even follow
\nits movement and see how it works through men and things. <\/span><\/p>\n

 From the minute you
\nbecome conscious of the Unity \u2014 unity of Force, unity of Consciousness and
\nunity of Will \u2014 well, you no longer have the perception which makes you quite
\nseparate from others, so that you do not know what goes on in them, they are
\nstrangers to you, you are shut up as it were in your
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nPage – 55<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

own skin, and have no contact with others except quite
\nexternally and superficially. But this happens precisely because you have not
\nrealised in yourself the perception of this oneness of Consciousness, Force and
\nWill \u2014 even of material vibrations. <\/span><\/p>\n

 It is the complexity
\nwhich makes this perception difficult \u2014 for our faculties of perception are
\nquite linear and very one-sided; so when we want to understand, we are
\nimmediately assailed by countless things which are almost inconsistent with
\neach other and intermix in such an intricate way that one can no longer make
\nout the lines and follow things \u2014 one suddenly enters a whirlwind. <\/span><\/p>\n

 But this is because\u2026 For
\ninstance, most men think one thought after another, even as they have to say
\none word after another \u2014 they can\u2019t say more than one word at the same time,
\nyou know, or else they stammer. Well, most people think like that, they think
\none thought after another, and so their whole consciousness has a linear
\nmovement. But one begins to perceive things only when one can see spherically,
\nglobally, think spherically, that is, have innumerable thoughts and perceptions
\nsimultaneously. <\/span><\/p>\n

 Naturally, up to now, if
\none wanted to describe things, one had to describe them one after another, for
\none can\u2019t say ten words at once, one says one word after another; and that is
\nwhy all one says is practically quite incapable of expressing the truth, quite
\nincapable. For we have to say one thing after another \u2014 the minute we say them
\none after another, they are no longer true. They must all be said at the same
\ntime, just as they can all be seen at the same time, and each one in its place.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

So, when one begins to see like
\nthis \u2014 to see, to discern, to feel, to think, to will like this \u2014 one draws
\nnear the Truth. But so long as one sees as one speaks, oh, what a lamentable
\npoverty! <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Sri Aurobindo writes: \u201cAs long
\nas we live in the ignorant seeming, we are the ego and are subject to the<\/span><\/i><\/b> <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n

\nPage – 56<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/span>modes of Nature. Enslaved to appearances, bound
\nto the dualities, tossed between good and evil, sin and virtue, grief and joy,
\npain and pleasure, good fortune and ill fortune, success and failure, we follow
\nhelplessly the iron round of the wheel of Maya.\u201d <\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 88<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/span><\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Yes there are people who have a happy and comfortable life, and
\npeople who have a miserable one. That depends \u2014 how shall I put it? \u2014 upon
\nindividual destiny, that depends perhaps on what they have to do upon earth, on
\nthe stage they have reached, on many things. It\u2019s quite obvious that it is not
\nthey who choose. For most people would always choose the same thing. If they
\nwere asked what they wanted, there would be differences, yes, but not so great.
\nIt would be rather monotonous. <\/span><\/p>\n

 Most people want to be what
\nthey call \u201cquiet\u201d, what they call \u201cpeaceful\u201d, to have a small organisation in
\ntheir own measure \u2014 which is generally microscopic, and consists of a regular
\nroutine of almost the same activities always, within almost the same bounds, in
\nalmost the same surroundings \u2014 and all that repeated without much difference;
\nwith a sufficient variety not to bee completely boring, but with nothing that
\nmight disturb this regular round which makes what is called a peaceful life.
\nFor the vast majority of people this is the ideal. <\/span><\/p>\n

 And so, the realisation
\nof this ideal in its details depends solely on the country where they are born,
\nthe society in which they are born, and the customs of their environment. Their
\nideal is fashioned by the manners of the country and society in which they
\nlive. <\/span><\/p>\n

 Of course, there are
\nexceptions, but they only prove the rule. Generally speaking, the most common
\nideal is to be born in an environment comfortable enough to avoid too many
\ndifficulties in life, to marry someone who won\u2019t give you too much trouble, to
\nhave healthy children who grow up normally \u2014 again to avoid trouble \u2014 and then
\na quiet and happy old age, and not <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nPage – 57<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/span>be too ill, again to
\navoid trouble. And then to pass away when one is tired of life, again because
\none does not want any trouble.<\/span><\/p>\n

 Indeed, this is the most
\nwidespread ideal. Naturally, there are exceptions, one may even find the exact
\nopposite. But existence, as men conceive it, would be rather monotonous. The
\ndifferences would come in the details, for in one country people prefer one
\nthing and in another, another; and then, in the society in which one is born,
\nthere are certain customs and an ideal of happiness, and in another society
\nthere are other customs and another ideal of happiness \u2014 and that\u2019s all. <\/span><\/p>\n

 If one speaks to
\nEuropeans, for example, they will say there is nothing more beautiful than
\nEurope. I knew Frenchmen \u2014 not one but hundreds \u2014 who used to say that there
\nwere no women in the world more beautiful than French women! And I knew a Negro
\nwho had been entirely educated in France and who, when asked which women were
\nthe most beautiful, said, \u201cThere is no woman more beautiful than a Negress.\u201d
\nThat was quite natural, wasn\u2019t it? Well, that\u2019s how it is. There is no house
\nmore beautiful than the one you are used to living in \u2014 the houses of the
\ncountry you live in, where you are born \u2014 and for the landscape it is the same
\nthing, for food the same thing, for habits it\u2019s the same thing. And provided
\nthat this goes on fairly harmoniously, without any very violent knocks, you are
\nperfectly satisfied. <\/span><\/p>\n

 That is the usual
\nmentality. And one turns round and round \u2014 and sometimes it is an iron circle,
\nsometimes a golden one \u2014 but one turns round and round and round, and the
\nchildren will turn round and round and the grandchildren will turn round and
\nround \u2014 and so it will go on. There you are. <\/span><\/p>\n

 That\u2019s enough for today.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 58<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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