There are two ends that come together in the play of the universe. On the one side, it is the Divine Will pressing from within and Above. On the other side it is the receptivity, readiness, and openness of the instrument. The more we are quiet and surrendered, the more we are full of faith, the more our consciousness is turned upward and our will fixed upon the goal, the more we facilitate the action of the Divine Will upon earth. But when our nature is not ready, the soul within may seek to go through difficult and challenging circumstances to turn our being’s orientation towards the Light and the Right. The Divine Will does not necessarily work to make life easy and comfortable for us. Its first ad foremost business and deep concern is to free us from that badge of Ignorance that ties us down to the thorny bushes of nature. While It tries to do so with minimum damage yet certain minimum conditions are required to help Its action.
Words of the Mother
f everything is God’s will, what is the use of personal will?
In the universe and more particularly upon earth everything is part of the divine plan executed by Nature and everything is necessary for its fulfilment. Personal will is one of Nature’s means of action and indispensable for her working. So personal will is in a way part of God’s will.
However, to understand properly, we must first agree on the meaning that is given to the word “will”. Will, as it is usually conceived, is the elaboration of a thought, to which is added a force, a power of fulfilment accompanied by an impulse to carry it out. That is the description of human will. Divine will is quite another thing. It is a vision united with a power of realisation. Divine will is omniscient and omnipotent, it is irresistible and immediate in its execution.
Human will is uncertain, often wavering, always in conflict with opposing wills. It is effective only when for some reason or other it is in accord with the will of Nature—itself a transcription of the divine will—or with the divine will itself, as a result of Grace or Yoga.
So one can say that personal will is one of the means that God uses to bring us back to Him.
April 20, 1960
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Words of Sri Aurobindo
To put it more soberly – accept once and for all that this thing has to be done, that it is the only thing left for yourself or the earth. Outside are earthquakes and Hitlers and a collapsing civilisation and, generally speaking, the ass and the flood. All the more reason to tend towards the one thing to be done, the thing you have been sent to aid in getting done. It is difficult and the way long and the encouragement given meagre? What then? Why should you expect so great a thing to be easy or that there must be either a swift success or none? The difficulties have to be faced and the more cheerfully they are faced, the sooner they will be overcome. The one thing to do is to keep the mantra of success, the determination of victory, the fixed resolve, “Have it I must and have it I will.” Impossible? There is no such thing as impossibility – there are difficulties and things of longue haleine, but no impossibles. What one is determined fixedly to do will get done now or later – it becomes possible. Drive out dark despair and go bravely on with your yoga. As the darkness disappears, the inner doors will open.
SABCL, Vol 23
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It is difficult and the way long and the encouragement given meagre? What then? Why should you expect so great a thing to be easy or that there must be either a swift success or none? The difficulties have to be faced and the more cheerfully they are faced, the sooner they will be overcome. The one thing to do is to keep the mantra of success, the determination of victory, the fixed resolve, “Have it I must and have it I will.” Impossible? There is no such thing as impossibility – there are difficulties and things of longue haleine, but no impossibles. What one is determined fixedly to do will get done now or later – it becomes possible. Drive out dark despair and go bravely on with your yoga. As the darkness disappears, the inner doors will open.
SABCL, Vol 23
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Whether by tapasya or surrender does not matter, the one thing is to be firm in setting one’s face to the goal. Once one has set one’s feet on the way, how can one draw back from it to something inferior? If one keeps firm, falls do not matter, one rises up again and goes forward. If one is firm towards the goal, there can be on the way to the Divine no eventual failure. And if there is something within you that drives as surely there is, falterings or falls or failure of faith make no eventual difference. One has to go on till the struggle is over and there is the straight and open and thornless way before us.
SABCL, Vol 23
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You have only to remain quiet and firm in your following of the path and your will to go to the end. If you do that circumstances will in the end be obliged to shape themselves to your will, because it will be the Divine Will in you.
SABCL, Vol 23
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The road of yoga is long, every inch of ground has to be won against much resistance and no quality is more needed by the sadhak than patience and single-minded perseverance with a faith that remains firm through all difficulties, delays and apparent failures.
SABCL, Vol 23
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A persistent faith which no circumstance or event can break. If difficulties occur, they raise not mental doubts or an inert acquiescence, but the firm belief that, with sincere consecration, the Divine Shakti will remove the difficulties, and with this belief a greater turning to her and dependence on her for that purpose. When there is full faith and consecration, there comes also a receptivity to the Force which makes one do the right thing and take the right means and then circumstances adapt themselves and the result is visible.
SABCL, Vol 23
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Effort means straining endeavour. There can be an action with a will in it in which there is no strain or effort.
Straining and concentration are not the same thing. Straining implies an over-eagerness and violence of effort, while concentration is in its nature quiet and steady. If there is restlessness or over-eagerness, then that is not concentration.
SABCL, Vol 23
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Difficulties and perplexities can never be got rid of by the mind brooding on them and trying in that way to get out of them; this habit of the mind only makes them recur without a solution and keeps up by brooding the persistent tangle. It is from something above and outside the perplexities that the solution must come. The difficulty of the physical mind – not the true thinking intelligence – is that it does not want to believe in this larger consciousness outside itself because it is not aware of it; and it remains shut like a box in itself, not admitting the light that is all round it and pressing to get in. It is a subtle law of the action of consciousness that if you stress difficulties – you have to observe them, of course, but not stress them, they will quite sufficiently do that for themselves – the difficulties tend to stick or even increase; on the contrary, if you put your whole stress on faith and aspiration and concentrate steadily on what you aspire to, that will sooner or later tend towards realisation. It is this change of stress, a change in the poise and attitude of the mind, that will be the more helpful process.
By development it [the will] becomes fit to merge into the Mother’s will. A will that is not strong is a great hindrance to sadhana.
SABCL, Vol 23
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If there is a constant use of the will the rest of the being learns however slowly to obey the will and then the actions become in conformity with the will and not with the vital impulses and desires. As for the rest (the feelings and desires etc. themselves) if they are not indulged in action or imagination and not supported by the will, if they are merely looked at and rejected when they come, then after some struggle they begin to lose their force and dwindle away.
SABCL, Vol 23
