{"id":4544,"date":"2013-07-13T01:56:44","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:56:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=4544"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:56:44","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:56:44","slug":"08-22-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\/08-22-february-1956-vol-08-questions-and-answers-volume-08","title":{"rendered":"-08_22 February 1956.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\n22 February 1956<\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Sweet Mother, I don\u2019t
\nunderstand \u201cthe strong immobility of an immortal spirit\u201d. <\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 95<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

What is it you don\u2019t understand? That an immortal spirit has a strong
\nimmobility? It says what it means. An immortal spirit is necessarily immobile
\nand strong, by the very fact of its being immortal. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

But then Sri Aurobindo says
\nabout the Gita: \u201cNot the mind\u2019s control of vital impulse is its rule, but the
\nstrong immobility of an immortal spirit.\u201d <\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Yes. But this is a conclusion, my child; you must read the
\nbeginning of the sentence if you want to understand.\u2026Ah! (Turning to a disciple)<\/span><\/i>
\nGive me the light and the book. (Mother searches<\/i><\/span>). Here it is, he
\nsays, \u201cThe Gita\u2026 aims at something absolute, unmitigated, unpromising, a turn,
\nan attitude that will change the whole poise of the soul. Not the mind\u2019s
\ncontrol of vital impulse is its rule, but the strong immobility of an immortal
\nspirit.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

 This is as clear as
\ndaylight. The Gita demands the strong immobility of an immortal spirit \u2014 all
\nthe rest is secondary. What the Gita wants is that the spirit should be
\nconscious of its immortality and thus have a strong immobility. <\/span><\/p>\n

 For this is a fact, it\u2019s
\nlike that. When the spirit is conscious of immortality, it becomes an
\nimmobility all made of strength. Immobility \u2014 that is to say, it doesn\u2019t move
\nany longer, but it is a strong immobility, it is not an immobility of inertia
\nor impotence; it is a strong immobility which is a basis for action, that is,
\nall one does founds itself upon this powerful \u2014 all-powerful \u2014 immobility of
\nthe spirit that is immortal. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nPage – 66<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 But you see, there is no
\nexplanation which can give you that; you must have the experience. As long as
\none has not had the experience, one can\u2019t understand what this means.\u2026 And it
\nis the same for everything: the head, the little brain, cannot understand. The
\nminute one has the experience, one understands \u2014 not before. One may have a
\nsort of imaginative idea, but this is not understanding. To understand, one
\nmust live it. When you become conscious of your immortal spirit, you will know
\nwhat its strong immobility is \u2014 but not before. Otherwise, these are mere
\nwords. <\/span><\/p>\n

 You don\u2019t understand how
\none can be immobile and strong at the same time, is that what is bothering you?
\nWell, I reply that the greatest strength is in immobility. That is the
\nsovereign power. <\/span><\/p>\n

 And there is a very small
\nsuperficial application of this which perhaps you will understand. Someone
\ncomes and insults you or says unpleasant things to you; and if you begin to
\nvibrate in unison with this anger or this ill-will, you feel quite weak and
\npowerless and usually you make a fool of yourself. But if you manage to keep
\nwithin yourself, especially in your head, a complete immobility which refuses
\nto receive these vibrations, then at the same time you feel a great strength,
\nand the other person cannot disturb you. If you remain very quiet, even
\nphysically, and when violence is directed at you, you are able to remain very
\nquiet, very silent, very still, well, that has a power not only over you but
\nover the other person also. If you don\u2019t have all these vibrations of inner
\nresponse, if you can remain absolutely immobile within yourself, everywhere,
\nthis has an almost immediate effect upon the other person. <\/span><\/p>\n

 That gives you an idea of
\nthe power of immobility. And it is a very common fact which can occur every
\nday; it is not a great event of spiritual life, it is something of the outer,
\nmaterial life. <\/span><\/p>\n

 There is a tremendous
\npower in immobility: mental immobility, sensorial immobility, physical
\nimmobility. If you can
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nPage – 67<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

remain like a wall, absolutely motionless, everything the other person
\nsends you will immediately fall back upon him. And it has an immediate action.
\nIt can stop the arm of the assassin, you understand, it has that strength.
\nOnly, one must not just appear to be immobile and yet be boiling inside! That\u2019s
\nnot what I mean. I mean an integral immobility. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Mother, is this the same as the
\nequality of soul Sri Aurobindo has spoken about ?<\/span><\/i> <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Equality of soul is a way. It is a means, it is a way \u2014 it can
\nbe a goal also. But it is not the consummation. <\/span><\/p>\n

 For example, there are
\nthose who say, who profess that everything that happens is the expression of
\nthe divine Will (I spoke about this last time, I think), there is an entire way
\nof looking at life, understanding life, which is like that, which says, \u201cAll
\nthat is, the world as it is, all that happens, is the expression of the divine
\nWill; therefore wisdom wants us, if we want to be in relation with the Divine,
\nto accept without flinching and without the slightest emotion or reaction all
\nthat happens, since it is the expression of the divine Will, and it is
\nunderstood that we should bow down before it.\u201d This is a conception which tends
\nprecisely to help people to acquire this equality of soul. But if you adopt
\nthis idea without adopting its opposite and making a synthesis of the two,
\nwell, naturally, you have only to sit through life and do nothing \u2014 or, in any
\ncase, never try to make the world progress. <\/span><\/p>\n

 I remember having read in
\na class, before our present class started \u2014 a class which also used to be held
\non Wednesdays, perhaps, I don\u2019t quite know, in which I used to read books \u2014 I
\nread a book by Anatole France, who had a very subtle wit \u2014 I think it was\u00a0 <\/span>Le Livre de Jerome Coignard but I am not
\nabsolutely sure \u2014 where he says that men would be perfectly happy if they were
\nnot so anxious to improve life. I am not quoting the exact words but the idea.
\nUnhappiness begins with this will
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nPage – 68<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

to make men and things better!\u2026 (Mother laughs) That is his way
\nof saying exactly the same thing I was just telling you in another form. If you
\nwant to be peaceful, happy, always satisfied, to have perfect equality of soul,
\nyou must tell yourself, \u201cThings are as they should be,\u201d and if you are
\nreligious you should tell yourself, \u201cThey are as they should be because they
\nare the expression of the divine Will\u201d, and we have only one thing to do, that
\nis to accept them as they are and be very quiet, because it is better to be
\nquiet than to be restless. He turns the thing round and puts it in another way;
\nhe says life is very comfortable and very tolerable and very acceptable, if men
\ndon\u2019t begin to wish that it should be different. And the minute they are not
\nhappy, naturally nobody is happy! Since they find that it is not what it should
\nbe, well, they begin to be unhappy \u2014 and others too.<\/span><\/p>\n

 But if everyone had the
\ngood sense to say, \u201cThings are as they should be; one dies because one has to
\ndie, and one is ill because one has to be ill, one is separated from those one
\nloves because one has to be separated, and then, etc\u2026 and one is in poverty because
\none has to be poor, one\u2026\u201d, you know, there is no end to it. Well, if
\ncompletely, totally, one says, \u201cThings are as they should be\u201d, it makes no
\nsense to grieve or to revolt, it\u2019s foolish!\u2026 Ah! one must be logical. So we say
\nthat misery begins with the will to make things better than they are. Why do
\nyou not want to be ill when you are ill? You are much more ill when, being ill,
\nyou don\u2019t want to be ill, than if you tell yourself, \u201cAll right, it is God\u2019s
\nWill, I accept my illness!\u201d At least you are quiet, that helps you to recover,
\nperhaps.\u2026 And poor people \u2014 why do they want to be rich? And people who lose
\ntheir children or their parents \u2014 why don\u2019t they want it to be like that? If
\neverybody wanted things to be as they are, everybody would be happy. <\/span><\/p>\n

 This is one point of
\nview. Only it happens that perhaps \u2014 perhaps, the divine Will is not quite like
\nthat. And perhaps it is as in that story \u2014 you all know the story of the
\nelephant and <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nPage – 69<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/span>its mahout? \u2014 the
\nelephant, its mahout and the Brahmin on the road who refused to get out of the
\nway of the elephant and, when the mahout told him, \u201cGo away\u201d, he replied, \u201cNo,
\nGod in me wants to stay here\u201d, and the mahout answered, \u201cPardon me, but God in
\nme tells you to go away!\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

 So the reply to Anatole
\nFrance is perhaps just this that there is a will higher than that of man which
\nwants things to change. And so there is nothing to do but obey and make them
\nchange. <\/span><\/p>\n

 There we are. Is that
\nall? <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Sweet Mother, it is written
\nhere: \u201cIn the path of works action is the knot we have first to\u00a0 <\/span>loosen.\u201d <\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 94<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/b><\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

Why is action a knot? <\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Because one is attached to action. The knot is the knot of the
\nego. You act because of desire. Sri Aurobindo says this, doesn\u2019t he? The ordinary
\nway of acting is tied to desire in one form or another \u2014 a desire, a need \u2014 so
\nthat is the knot. If you act only to satisfy desire \u2014 a desire which you call a
\nneed or a necessity or anything else, but in truth, if you go to the very root
\nof the thing, you see that it is the impulse of a desire which makes you act \u2014
\nwell, if you act only under the effect of the impulse of desire, you will no
\nlonger be able to act when you eliminate the desire. <\/span><\/p>\n

 And this is the first
\nanswer people give you. When they are told, \u201cAct without being attached to the
\nresult of action, have this consciousness that it is not you who are acting, it
\nis the Divine who is acting\u201d, the reply which ninety-nine and a half per cent
\ngive is, \u201cBut if I feel like that, I don\u2019t move any longer! I don\u2019t do anything
\nany more; it is always a need, a desire, a personal impulse which makes me act
\nin one way or another.\u201d So Sri Aurobindo says, if you want to realise this
\nteaching of
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nPage – 70<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

the Gita, the first thing to do is to loosen this knot, the knot
\nbinding action to desire \u2014 so firmly tied are they that if you take away one
\nyou take away the other. He says the knot must be loosened in order to be able
\nto remove desire and yet continue to act.\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 And this is a fact, this
\nis what must be done. The knot must be loosened. It is a small inner operation
\nwhich you can very easily perform; and when it has been performed, you realise
\nthat you act absolutely without any personal motive, but moved by a Force
\nhigher than your egoistic force, and also more powerful. And then you act, but
\nthe consequences of action no longer return upon you. <\/span><\/p>\n

 This is a wonderful
\nphenomenon of consciousness, and quite concrete. In life you do something \u2014
\nwhatever you do, good, bad, indifferent, it doesn\u2019t matter \u2014 whatever it may
\nbe, it immediately has a series of consequences. In fact you do it to obtain a
\ncertain result, that is why you act, with an eye to the result. For example, if
\nI stretch out my hand like this to take the mike, I am looking for the result,
\nyou see, to make sounds in the mike. And there is always a consequence, always.
\nBut if you loosen the knot and let a Force coming from above \u2014 or elsewhere \u2014
\nact through you and make you do things, though there are consequences of your
\naction, they don\u2019t come to you any longer, for it was not you who initiated the
\naction, it was the Force from above. And the consequences pass above, or else
\nthey are guided, willed, directed, controlled by the Force which made you act.
\nAnd you feel\u00a0 <\/span>absolutely free, nothing
\ncomes back to you of the result of what you have done. <\/span><\/p>\n

 There are people who have
\nhad this experience \u2014 but these things come first in a flash, for a moment, and
\nthen withdraw; it is only when one is quite ready for the transformation that
\nthis comes and is established \u2014 well, some people have had this experience
\nonce, perhaps for a few seconds in their lives, they have had the experience;
\nand then the movement has been withdrawn, the state of consciousness has
\nwithdrawn; but the memory <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nPage – 71<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

remains. And they imitate that. And if by chance they happen to
\nbe people who know how to make speeches, like certain gurus who have disciples
\nto whom they teach the path, they tell them this, \u201cWhen it is the Divine who
\nacts through you and when you have loosened the knot of desire, you no longer
\nsuffer any moral or other consequences of what you do. And you can do anything
\nwhatever: you can kill your neighbour, you can violate a woman, you can do
\neverything the Divine wants in you \u2014 and you will never suffer any consequences.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 And indeed they do it!
\nYes, they take the experience as a cloak to cover all their excesses\u2026 This is
\njust by the way, to put you on your guard against people who pretend to be what
\nthey are not. <\/span><\/p>\n

 But, as a matter of fact,
\nthe result is very simple, for immediately they suffer the consequences of
\ntheir pretences \u2014 they say they don\u2019t, but they suffer them\u2026 I knew of a very
\nstriking case of a sannyasin who was furious with someone who did not want to
\nbe his disciple \u2014 already this proved that he was far from having realised this
\nstate \u2014 and who wished to take revenge. And indeed he had some powers, he had
\nmade a very powerful formation to kill this person who had refused to be his
\ndisciple. It so happened that this person was in contact with Sri Aurobindo. He
\ntold him his story and Sri Aurobindo told it to me. And the result was that the
\nformation made by that man, who was acting with his so-called divine Will, fell
\nback on him in such a way that it was he who died! <\/span><\/p>\n

 And it was simply the
\nfact of re-establishing the truth. There was nothing else to do. <\/span><\/p>\n

 So the moral of the story
\nis that one must not pretend, one must be; that one must be absolutely sincere
\nand not cover up one\u2019s desires with fine theories. <\/span><\/p>\n

 I have met many people
\nwho claimed they had perfect equality of soul and perfect freedom, and hid
\nthemselves behind these theories: \u201cAll is the divine Will\u201d, and who, in fact,
\nin their thought, were substituting their own will for the divine Will, and
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 72<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

were very far from realising what they claimed. They were idlers
\nwho didn\u2019t want to make any effort and preferred keeping their nature as it
\nwas, rather than working to transform it.\u00a0
\n<\/span>Voil<\/span>\u00e0<\/span> ! <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

           <\/span>
\nSweet Mother, do these people have powers?<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Yes! There are some who have
\ngreat powers. But these powers come from the vital and from an association with
\nvital entities. <\/span><\/p>\n

 There are all kinds of
\npowers. Only, those powers don\u2019t hold out before the true divine Power \u2014 they
\ncan\u2019t resist. But over ordinary human beings they have much power. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Then, they can do harm? <\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Much. Not only they can, they do it. They do a lot of harm. The
\nnumber of people who are tormented because they had the misfortune of meeting a
\nso-called sannyasin,<\/span>\u00b9<\/span> is considerable, considerable. I am not telling you this to
\nfrighten you, because here you are protected, but it is a fact. While receiving
\ninitiation these men have received the imposition of a force from the vital
\nworld, which is extremely dangerous.\u2026This is not always the case, but most often
\nthis is what happens. <\/span><\/p>\n

 Because sincerity is so
\nrare a virtue in the world, one ought to bow down before it with respect when
\none meets it. Sincerity \u2014 what we call sincerity, that is to say, a perfect
\nhonesty and transparency: that there may be nowhere in the being anything which
\npretends, hides or wants to s itself off for what it is not.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b9<\/font><\/span><\/b>Of course, this refers only to those who put on the orange robe
\nwith the sole purpose of hiding their egoistic passions behind the veil of a
\ndress which is generally respected. There can be no question about those who
\nhave a pure heart and whose dress is simply the outer sign of their integral
\nconsecration to the spiritual life. (The Mother)<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\nPage –
\n73<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

22 February 1956    Sweet Mother, I don\u2019t understand \u201cthe strong immobility of an immortal spirit\u201d. The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 95   What is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-08-questions-and-answers-volume-08","wpcat-127-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4544\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}