Q: This notebook is ending. It has brought me thy presence. Perhaps the next one will bring thy self, at least glimpses of thee.
A: Yes, I wish that with the next notebook you receive the light and peace. With my blessings.
14.6.1935
*
Q: What an effort is needed to turn to thee from this rigid, egoistic and obscure nature! When will this sort of life end?
A: When you will take the resolution to be a little more calm and poised in your mind and vital.
1.6.1935
*
Q: I think I must stay physically at a little distance from you as long as I have these demands in me.
A: This is a hostile suggestion, totally false, to be rejected immediately.
3.6.1935
*
Q: There is a part in me which takes joy in the evolution of the world.
A: Certainly there is a part in you which is in harmony with the psychic life of the universe.
4.6.1935
*
Q: Turn my consciousness towards Thee.
A: Never doubt my love and then, all naturally, you will turn towards me.
10.6.1935
*
Q: I made a great effort yesterday to rediscover myself in light and joy, but I floundered.
A: It is very good to have made the effort, but you must not get discouraged so quickly because you did not succeed immediately. You must, on the contrary, persevere in your effort till you succeed. My help will be always with you.
11.6.1935
*
Q: Last evening I made an effort and the illness disappeared. But today again it has come back. Why? How?
A: It is always so; there is nothing exceptional in it.
13.6.1935
*
Q: Now I have the hope that I will be surely out of all obscurity and ignorance.
A: There is no doubt about this; and the more you will remain calm and confident, the sooner it will be done.
14.6.1935
*
Q: Sometime after the Pranam I had been to X. I started crying. Something had happened during pranam.
A: During the Pranam I had put you in communion with your psychic being. But why did you then go to X? It is because you thus lost what I have given you, that you wept.
18.6.1935
*
Q: Always the same fire ravages from all sides!
A: You will do well to extinguish it if it ravages you or utilise it if it can purify you.
20.6.1935
*
Q: S says that those whom you caress during Pranam make more progress than the rest.
A: What are these stories?
15.6.1935
*
Q: Why has it not been possible for me to put into effect all the knowledge the mind has?
A: Because the vital is not habitual to obey.
15.6.1935
*
Q: What parts of my being are still under foreign influence?
A: Principally in the physical and the vital, but also some parts of the mind.
15.6.1935
*
Q: I always lose what you give. What is to be done?
A: Be more careful in future and take care not to lose what I give.
18.6.1935
*
Q: I think I must go into solitude if I am to save myself from going far from Thee.
A: It is for you to know if you can do it without falling into depression which will be still worse than gossiping.
18.6.1935
*
Q: If my physical, vital are entirely under the influence of falsehood and also parts of the mind, what then have I been doing in the past four and half years?
A: What is four years for sadhana! Very little….
19.6.1935
*
Q: The physical vital has become uncontrollable. It destroys everything that I put by way of control. I burn. I feel weak and helpless.
A: All these are wrong suggestions that you must reject. Have you got fever? In that case you must ask Nirod to treat you. But if you have no fever this story of fire is a wrong imagination that must be rejected.
There is a sacred fire that burns in the heart and envelops the whole being; it is agni that illumines and purifies everything. Each time you ask me for progress, I light up this fire in you; but it destroys nothing except falsehood and obscurity.
20.6.1935
*
Q: If still falsehood and obscurity persist in me, what is to be done?
A: An integral purification and a long and slow work.
21.6.1935
*
Q: A prayer for peace and silence rises towards thee.
A: Yes, you need peace and silence, but an inner peace and silence.
21.6.1935
*
Q: Once the earth is transformed by the Divine Presence, will it always stay in the Divine state or will it again turn towards obscurity and ignorance?
A: One should hope not.
21.6.1935
*
Q: Will you tell me from where we come and where we go?
A: You are asking for the story of the universe!
21.6.1935
*
Q: Is it not a fact that it is the divine that has made us ignorant and inconvenient?
A: It is stupid.
21.6.1935
*
Q: Then how have we become inconscient and ignorant?
A: I take it that by us you mean human beings. Human beings have not become ignorant and obscure, they have always been so, for the material nature was inconscient and obscure long before the appearance of man.
21.6.1935
*
Q: I want to know about silence. Is silence more worthwhile than concentration upon the lower nature to control it?
A: Concentration upon lower nature is never good; one must concentrate on what one wants to develop and not on what one wants to destroy.
21.6.1935
*
Q: One ought not to concentrate upon the lower nature; but I believe great care is to be taken not to allow it to express itself.
A: Yes, certainly.
21.6.1935
*
Q: I think one must be peaceful and silent externally also.
A: Peaceful, certainly; silence is not always possible.
21.6.1935
*
Q: Does silence bring all the force needed for purification and transformation?
A: Does not bring it positively but it is in silence that one receives.
21.6.1935
*
Q: S. tells me contradictory things; how can one trust her?
A: Only those who have the inner vision and the knowledge of Truth, have a judgement in which one can have confidence.
6.1935
*
Q: Can silence bring me the force to correct my error and soar towards Thee?
A: Of course if in the silence there is a sincere aspiration.
6.1935
*
Q: Tell me why I love Thee.
A: It is your psychic being — like all psychic beings — that loves me.
6.1935
*
Q: All have psychic being; why then do not all love Thee?
A: Either because they are not conscious of their psychic being or they do not know me.
6.1935
*
Psychic love never bargains; but the vital always tries to draw some profit from all circumstances.
6.1935
*
Q: Is it that only my psychic being loves Thee and no other part?
A: In the measure in which the mind, the vital and the physical are under the control of the psychic being, they also love me.
6.1935
*
Repose is not necessarily a cessation of inner effort.
6.1935
*
Q: Do you think there might be some redoubtable difficulties which would make me give up yoga?
A: I do not think so.
Q: We saw H making extraordinary progress; in spite of all that he disobeyed Thee. I ask this in order to be sure of myself.
A: You have had no past before coming here. It is H’s past that stands in his way.
Q: I am yours; what have I to fear?
A: Certainly you have nothing to fear.
6.1935
*
Q: I am afraid of the old ambition to be a yogi, though it is much less now.
A: Since you are conscious of the danger, why not conquer it?
6.1935
*
Q: Can the subconscient reject an attained union with the Divine?
A: A part of the being may have attained union (naturally partial) and another part remain in its obscurity and ignorance.
6.1935
*
Q: Anyway I have no fear; you are leading me.
A: Yes, if you are sincere in your aspiration and your will to reach this goal.
6.1935
*
Q: What attitude should I have so that nothing may harm me?
A: Perfect detachment, equality of soul, disinterestedness.
*
Q: One must not kill animals that do not harm. It follows that one must kill all those that do harm.
A: The solution of the problem does not lie in mental rules but in a conscious union with the Divine Will and in a constant perception of the Truth.
7.6.1935
*
Q: In our yoga, what is the right attitude towards animals?
A: It is only when one has attained the consciousness of the divine Unity that one can have the right attitude. In the meanwhile it is always good to act towards the animals with respect, love and compassion.
8.6.1935
*
Q: But then should not injurious insects be killed?
A: Without any doubt.
12.6.1935
*
Q: What is the way to get out of the obsession of pain when it is too much?
A: Look at a beautiful flower.
13.6.1935
*
Q: But when the pain is too much even the flower looks poor.
A: That would be the proof of a total slavery to the vital part that suffers. You must learn to bifurcate yourself and detach from external and inferior movements.
14.6.1935
*
Q: Not to be able to watch the suffering of others but to flee is a weakness.
A: If one has not the means, moral or material to relieve them, I do not see what purpose it can serve to watch them.
16.6.1935
*
One must be capable of giving all in order to learn to possess truly.
24.6.1935
*
Q: It is by wish that one attains beatitude. Without wishing one gets nothing.
A: No. The desire is useful only at the beginning of the evolution to awake the consciousness out of its torpor, but it is not desire that can lead towards Beatitude; that is the result of self-giving.
24.6.1935
*
The ego is a help as long as it helps to form the physical individuality, but when it is formed the ego ought to disappear.
26.6.1935
*
Humanity such as it is actually, is still in the animal stage; one must, then, pass beyond this ordinary human state to become a true man capable of being conscious of the Divine.
1.7.1935
*
Q: Is there a thing called hell?
A: Yes, there are hells formed by human thought and they exist in certain regions of the vital worlds.
6.1935
*
Q: Does one suffer torments of hell after death?
A: Yes, if one believes in it.
24.6.1935
*
It is during the physical life on earth that one has occasion to purify oneself and to make spiritual progress.
1.7.1935
*
Q: How can one suffer after one is dead?
A: It is the vital that feels the suffering; and the vital being is not destroyed with the body.
10.7.1935
*
Q: There seems to be something extraordinary in the atmosphere of the Ashram or at least in mine. But my depression continues in spite of all effort, aspiration and calm. I do not know which way to turn.
A: I do not believe that things are as you say; in any case, as far as you are concerned, the best for you is not to torment yourself and to aspire peacefully till your difficulties disappear.
It is always the resistance that creates the confusion.
8.7.1935
*
Q: Why has my condition become so dry? Have I lost my way or is it a test?
A: What do you mean by test? Surely it is not a thing arbitrarily imposed upon you. The state in which you find yourself is always the normal result of your way of thinking, feeling and acting.
Q: I anticipate something hostile coming to me.
A: To anticipate a bad thing is useful only if one uses that anticipation to repulse the bad thing.
11.7.1935
*
Q: Something bad is going to happen to me. I do not know how and when. How to repel it?
A: You can simply repulse the thought that something bad is going to come.
Q: Anyway I cannot leave this yoga. I prefer death to giving up yoga.
A: There is no question of your giving up yoga and I am pretty sure you will not do it. There is also no reason whatever for you to die. You will live and live for the Divine.
12.7.1935
*
Q: Surely I do not want to leave thee, but what shall I do? Someone takes me away from thee.
A: Do not obey this “someone”.
29.7.1935
*
Q: How to conquer ambition which continues in spite of the knowledge of the Truth?
A: Learn to see the vanity of these fugitive and hollow satisfactions.
*
Q: Is it possible for the psychic to control the being without coming to the front?
A: “To control the being” and “to come to the front” are two terms for the same thing.
*
Q: My mind says that in my previous life I failed in my effort for integral transformation. What is the surety that it would not be the same this time also?
A: Because in the last birth the moment had not come when integral transformation was possible.
*
to be continued…
About Savitri | B1C1-10 The Response of Earth (p.5)