Yoga is an inner battle. In fact life itself has an aspect of the battle. Evolution by its very nature implies a battle between what was and what is yet to be. The present talk explores the nature of this inner battle and the final consummation possible with the descent of Bliss into the abysses of nature.
Words of the Mother
I was watching, not exactly with curiosity, but in order to learn – to learn what kind of atmosphere people live in! And it is ALWAYS like that! They are always pestered by HORDES of little formations that are absolutely swarming and disgusting, each one making its … nasty little suggestion.
Take these movements of anger, for example, when someone is carried away by his passion and does things which, in his normal state, he would never do: he is not doing it, it is done by these little formations which are there, swarming in the atmosphere, just waiting for an occasion … to rush in. When you see them, oh! it’s … suffocating. When you’re in contact with that … Really, you wonder how anyone can breathe in such an atmosphere. And yet people CONSTANTLY live in that atmosphere! They live in it. Only when they rise above are they NOT in it. Or else there are those who are entirely below; but those are the toys of these things, and their reactions are sometimes not only unexpected but absolutely dreadful – because they are puppets in the hands of these things.
Those who rise above, who enter into a slightly intellectual region, can see all this from above; they can look down at it all, keep their heads above and breathe; but those who live in this realm …
Sri Aurobindo calls this realm the ‘intermediate zone,’ a zone in which, he says, you can have all the experiences you wish if you enter into it. But it isn’t (laughing) very advisable! – and I understand why! I had that experience because I had just read what Sri Aurobindo says on this subject in a letter in this latest book, On Yoga; I wanted to see for myself what it was. Ah, I understood!
……..If you are annoyed, for example, if someone says something unpleasant to you and you react … It always happens in the same way; these little entities are there waiting, and when they feel it’s the right moment, they introduce their influence and their suggestions. This is what is vitally symbolized by the being with his dagger rushing forward to stab you – and in the back, at that! Not even face to face! This then expresses itself in the human consciousness by a movement of anger or rage or indignation: ‘How intolerable! How … !’ And the other fellow says, ‘Yes! We shall put an end to it!’
March 10, 1959
* * *
‘You ask me what you must do. It would be better to ask what you must be, because the circumstances and activities in life have not much importance. What is important is our way of reacting towards them.’
‘Human nature is such that when you concentrate on your body you fall ill; when you concentrate on your heart and feelings you become unhappy; when you concentrate on the mind you get bewildered.’
‘There are two ways of getting out of this precarious condition.
‘One is very arduous: it is a severe and continuous tapasya. It is the way of the strong who are predestined for it.
‘The other is to find something worth concentrating upon that diverts your attention from your small, personal self. The most effective is a big ideal, but there are innumerable things that enter into this category. Most commonly, people choose marriage, because it is the most easily available (Mother laughs). To love somebody and to love children makes you busy and compels you to forget your own self a little. But it is rarely successful, because love is not a common thing.
‘Others turn to art, others to science; some choose a social or a political life, etc., etc.
‘But here also, all depends on the sincerity and the endurance with which the chosen path is followed. Because here also, there are difficulties and obstacles to surmount.
‘So, in life, nothing comes without an effort and a struggle.
‘And if you are not ready for the effort and the struggle, then it is better to accept the fact that life will be dull and unsatisfactory, and submit quietly to this fact.’
That’s for the complainers.
(long silence)
And it’s absolutely true – true at each stage, on all levels. Whatever level you have attained, even the very highest, if you concentrate on that [the body], it is finished! And all the difficulties begin, you know, with that very concentration that tries to draw down Light and Power – yogic concentration itself.
So it would seem … that if one wants to use his individuality, his body, to transform the whole – that is, if one wants to use his bodily presence to act upon the universal corporeal substance – there’s no end to it. No end to the difficulties, no end to the battle … BATTLE!
(silence)
Those who try to lead a spiritual life have always been compared to warriors (there are classic writings on this subject), and one must truly be a fighter – ‘fighter’ is more exact than ‘warrior’ because you wage war against no one: everything wages war against you! Everything … (Mother makes a gesture like an avalanche falling upon her) and with such savage opposition! …
Ah, well….
(silence)
February 7, 1961
* * *
‘ … There are other great Personalities of the Divine Mother, but they were more difficult to bring down and have not stood out in front with so much prominence in the evolution of the earth-spirit. There are among them Presences indispensable for the supramental realization, – most of all one who is her Personality of that mysterious and powerful ecstasy and Ananda which flows from a supreme divine Love, the Ananda that alone can heal the gulf between the highest heights of the supramental spirit and the lowest abysses of Matter, the Ananda that holds the key of a wonderful divines” Life and even now supports from its secrecies the work of all the other Powers of the universe.’
Sri Aurobindo: The Mother
Sweet Mother, what is this Personality and when will It manifest?
Here is my answer (Mother reads):
‘She has come, bringing with Her a splendor of power and love, an intensity of divine joy heretofore unknown to the Earth. The physical atmosphere has been completely changed by her descent, permeated with new and marvelous possibilities.
But if She is ever to reside and act here, She has to find at least a minimal receptivity, at least one human being with the required vital and physical qualities, a kind of super-Parsifal gifted with an innate and integral purity, yet possessing at the same time a body strong enough and poised enough to bear unwaveringly the intensity of the Ananda She brings. Thus far, She has not found what is needed. Men remain obstinately men and do not want to or are unable to become supermen. All they can receive and express is a love at their own dimension: a human love – whereas the supreme bliss of divine Ananda eludes their perception.
But the vibrations of divine Bliss and those of pleasure cannot cohabit in the same vital and physical house. We must therefore TOTALLY renounce all feelings of pleasure to be ready to receive the divine Ananda. But rare are those who can renounce pleasure without thereby renouncing all active participation in life or sinking into a stern asceticism. And among those who realize that the transformation is to be wrought in active life, some pretend that pleasure is a form of Ananda gone more or less astray and legitimize their search for self-satisfaction, thereby creating a virtually insuperable obstacle to their own transformation.’
…….. But Mother, if She came down, She must have seen a possibility!
She came down because there WAS a possibility – because things had reached such a stage that it was her hour to come down. But in truth, She came down because … because I thought it was possible for her to succeed.
Possibilities are still there – only they have to materialize.
But there was a formidable battle with the Inconscient, for when I saw that the level of receptivity was not what it should have been, I blamed the Inconscient … and tried to wage the battle there.
I don’t say it was ineffectual, but between the result obtained and the result hoped for, there was a considerable difference. But as I said, you who are all so near, so steeped in this atmosphere … who among you noticed anything? – You simply went on with your little lives as usual.
I think it was in 1946, Mother, because you told us so many things at that time.
Right.
Sweet Mother, now that She has come, what should we do?
You don’t know?
(silence)
Try to change your consciousness.
August 25, 1954
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