I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to say things in an expressive way … for the time being, words are terrible veils.
The body is something very, very simple and very childlike, and it has that experience so imperatively, you understand, it doesn’t need to “seek”: it just has to stop its activity for a minute and … it’s there. So then, it wonders why people haven’t been aware of that since the beginning? It wonders, “Why, why have they sought all kinds of things – religions, gods … all kinds of things – when it’s so simple!” So simple, for the body it’s so simple, so self-evident.
All those constructions – religions, philosophies … all those constructions – are a need of the mind to … “play the game.” It wants to play the game well. While the body is so simple, so simple, so obvious! So obvious, so simple: “Why,” it wonders, “Why, why have they been seeking all kinds of complications … when it’s so simple?” The very fact of saying, “The Divine is deep within you” … (it remembers its own experience, you understand) is so complicated, while it’s so simple!
It can’t explain, can’t express, there are no words, but it has a sort of conscious perception of … what distorts and veils. And that’s what has become reality for all human consciousnesses.
It’s hard to express.
As to whether the Divine seriously means something to happen, I believe it is intended. I know with absolute certitude that the Supramental is a truth and its advent is in the very nature of things inevitable. The question is as to the when and the how. That also is decided and predestined from somewhere above; but it is here being fought out amid a rather grim clash of conflicting forces.
There was that tall fellow who watched over the Samadhi for a long time, Haradhan; he was there. And when he saw me arrive, he told me, “I have brought something for you.” And in a sort of dark-blue cloth, he had wrapped two big prawns, which he gave me! These were already cooked, ready to be eaten. The cloth wasn’t very much to my liking! So I thought, “How can I make them a little cleaner before eating them?”
The world isn’t ready.
So then, if it is Kali, it means everything back to the melting pot, and with the means at their disposal, that may mean having to start the whole civilization from scratch again – how many centuries wasted?
What has come down to us from the civilizations that disappeared?… Nothing. Nothing, not even one exact bit of information.
All that, all this Matter all the time going … making effort, producing forms, producing an element that can manifest consciousness, and then, brff! And again, and back it goes again – what a terrible waste! A great waste.
“From the positive point of view, I am convinced that we agree upon the result to be obtained, that is, an integral and unreserved consecration—in love, knowledge and action—to the Supreme AND TO HIS WORK. I say to the Supreme and to his work because consecration to the Supreme alone is not enough. Now we are here for the supramental realization, this is what is expected of us, but to reach it, our consecration to it must be total, unreserved absolutely integral. I believe you have understood this—in other words, that you have the will to realize it.” So really it is incumbent for us, who have the arrogance to claim ourselves, the devotees of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, to gain full appreciation and conception of their work, the New Creation, and collaborate.
Read more…
The physical mind is the mind of the physical personality formed by the body. It grows with the body, but it isn’t the mind of Matter: it is the mind of the physical being. For instance, it is the mind that makes one’s character: the bodily, physical character, which is in large part formed by atavism and education. What is called “physical mind” is all that. Yes, it’s the result of atavism, of education and of the formation of the body; that’s what makes the physical character. For example, some people are patient, some are strong and so on – physically, I mean, not for vital or mental reasons, but purely physically everyone has a character. That’s the physical mind. And it is part of any integral yoga: you discipline this physical mind. I have done it for more than sixty years.
On the 15 August 1965, at the balcony, Sri Aurobindo was there. He had come and he went out on the balcony with me. I didn’t say anything to anybody, not to anybody at all. And there is a little girl, about fifteen years old now, who is considered here as a bad pupil, erratic, fanciful (they had even talked of sending her away), but once I asked her to come for her birthday, and as for me, I found her a fine girl (!) And she wrote to me two or three days ago that on the 15th, at the Darshan, she saw Sri Aurobindo on my right. And she asked, “Is it true?”
The big question is who can Assure of the Deathlessness around the corner of the Present? It is to be noted that the declaration in the opening line is not of the type of a vision, or even of the kind of a revelatory promise, but of the kind of an imminent realization. And that it would be the fulfilment of the Promise made by the Supreme to his labouring Force. So who can declare such an Epiphany, who has the Certitude? Possibly the one charged with realizing such a possibility on Earth. Possibly who has worked out this “Direct action from the Supreme”. It cannot be none other than the glorious Avatar who has been so appointed and so labouring. And for the yogi-poet to so declare he has to be Him.
So it is the Avatar-Poet who introduces Himself and declares the success of His working out of His “immemorial quest” in the opening line. From the perspective of the import and significance of this line, these eight words,—It was the hour before the Gods awake—might as well be considered as the most important words ever uttered, most victorious ever affirmed.
Read more…
If the divine consciousness and divine force could work directly from the place or state of their perfection, if they could work directly on matter and transform it, there would be no need to take a body like man’s. It would have been enough to act from the world of Truth with the perfect consciousness and upon consciousness. In fact that acts perhaps but so slowly that when there is this effort to make the world progress, make it go forward more rapidly, well, it is necessary to take on human nature. By taking the human body, one is obliged to take on human nature, partially. Only, instead of losing one’s consciousness and losing contact with the Truth, one keeps this consciousness and this Truth, and it is by joining the two that one can create exactly this kind of alchemy of transformation. But if one did not touch matter, one could do nothing for it.
The unification of the East and the West is the religion of today. But in this task of unification, if we consider the West as the foundation or the chief support we shall be making a grievous error. The East is the foundation, the chief support. The outer world is established in the inner, not vice versa. Respect and emotion, or inner attitude (bhāva), are the source of energy and activity, one has to be faithful to one’s inner attitude (bhāva) and sense of reverence, but one is not to be attached to the application of force and the external forms and means of activity. The occidentals are busy with the outward forms and means of democracy. But the external form is only for the purpose of expressing the inner attitude; it is this attitude that shapes the form, it is one’s reverence that creates the means or the instrument. The occidentals are so attached to the forms and instruments that they are unable to notice that in their external expressions the inner attitude and reverence are languishing. These days in the eastern countries the inner attitude and respect for democracy are becoming fast clearer and creating external means and building its outward forms, while in the western countries that feeling is getting dimmed, that respect is much attenuated. The East has set its face towards the dawn, moving towards the light—the West is moving back towards the dark night.
