No need to despise
the physical being it is part of the intended manifestation.
*
3246
It is because your consciousness in the course of the
sadhana has come into contact with the lower physical nature and sees it as
it is in itself when it is not kept down or controlled either by the mind, the
psychic or the spiritual force. This nature is in itself full of low and obscure
desires, it is the most animal part of the human being. One has to come into
contact with it so as to know what is there and transform it. Most
sadhaks of the old type are satisfied with rising into the spiritual or
psychic realms and leave this part to itself but by that it remains unchanged,
even if mostly quiescent, and no complete transformation is possible. You have
only to remain quiet and undisturbed and let the higher Force work to change
this obscure physical nature.
*
3247
All that may be very well in theory, but practically it
is found that the physical impurity is strong enough to bar the inner progress
and limit rigidly the inner experience to some passive peace.
*
3248
The opportunity for these contrary forces is given when
the sadhak
descends in the inevitable course of the
sadhana from the mental or the higher vital plane to the physical
consciousness. Always this is accompanied by a fading of the first deep
experiences and a descent to the neutral obscure inertia which is the bed-rock
of the unredeemed physical nature. It is there that the Light, the Power, the
Ananda of the Divine has to descend and
transform everything, driving away for ever all obscurity and all inertia and
establishing the radiant Energy, the perfect Light and the unchanging Bliss.
There and not in the mind or the higher vital is all the difficulty, but there
too must be the victory and the foundation of the new world. I do not wish to
disguise from you the difficulty of this great and tremendous change or the
possibility that you may have a long and hard work before you, but are you
really unwilling to face it and take your share in the great work? Will you
reject the greatness of this endeavour to follow a mad irrational impulse
towards some more exciting work of the hour or the moment for which you have no
true call in any part of your nature?
There is no true reason for despondency; in nothing
that has passed do I find any good ground for it. The difficulties you
experience are nothing to those that others have felt and yet conquered them,
others who were not stronger than you. All that has happened is that by this
descent into the physical consciousness the ordinary external human nature has
come to the front with its elemental imperfections and subconscient unsatisfied
impulses and it is to these that the contrary force is appealing. The mind and
the higher vital have put away from them the ideas and illusions which gave them
a sanction, an illusion of legitimacy and even nobility in their satisfaction.
But the root of them, their inherent irrational push for satisfaction, has not
yet gone this, for instance, is the reason for the sexual movements which you
have recently felt in sleep or in waking. This was inevitable. All that is
needed is for your psychic being to come forward and open you to the direct and
real and constant inner contact of myself and the Mother. Hitherto your soul has
expressed itself through the mind and its ideals and admirations or through the
vital and its higher joys and aspirations; but that is not sufficient to conquer
the physical difficulty and enlighten and transform Matter. It is your soul in
itself, your psychic being that must come in front, awaken entirely and make the
fundamental change. The psychic being will not need the support of intellectual
ideas or outer signs and helps. It is that alone that can give you the direct
feeling of the Divine, the constant nearness, the inner support and aid. You
will not then feel the
Mother remote or have any further doubt about the realisation; for the mind
thinks and the vital craves, but the soul feels and knows the Divine.
Cast away from you these movements of doubt, depression
and the rest which are no part of your true and higher nature. Reject these
suggestions of inability, unfitness and all these irrational movements of an
alien force. Remain faithful to the Light of your soul even when it is hidden by
clouds. My help and the Mother's will be there working behind even in the
moments when you cannot feel it. The one need for you and for all is to be, even
in the darkness of the powers of obscurity of the physical consciousness,
stubbornly faithful to your soul and to the remembrance of the Divine Call. Be
faithful and you will conquer.
*
3249
When I spoke of being faithful to the light of the soul
and the divine Call, I was not referring to anything in the past or to any lapse
on your part. I was simply affirming the great need in all crises and attacks,
to refuse to listen to any suggestions, impulses, lures and to oppose to them
all the call of the Truth, the imperative beckoning of the Light. In all doubt
and depression, to say, I belong to the Divine, I cannot fail; to all
suggestions of impurity and unfitness, to reply, I am a child of Immortality
chosen by the Divine; I have but to be true to myself and to Him the victory
is sure; even if I fell, I would rise again; to all impulses to depart and
serve some smaller ideal, to reply, This is the greatest, this is the Truth
that alone can satisfy the soul within me; I will endure through all tests and
tribulations to the very end of the divine journey. This is what I mean by
faithfulness to the Light and the Call.
*
3250
These are things which come almost inevitably in one
degree or another at a certain critical stage through which almost everyone has
to pass and which usually lasts for an uncomfortably long time but which need
not be at all conclusive or definitive.
Usually, if one persists, it is the period of darkest night before the dawn
which comes to every or almost every spiritual aspirant. It is due to a plunge
one has to take into the sheer physical consciousness unsupported by any true
mental light or by any vital joy in life, for these usually withdraw behind the
veil, though they are not, as they seem to be, permanently lost. It is a period
when doubt, denial, dryness, greyness and all kindred things come up with a
great force and often reign completely for a time. It is after this stage has
been successfully crossed that the true light begins to come, the light which is
not of the mind but of the spirit. The spiritual light, no doubt, comes to some
to a certain extent and to a few to a considerable extent, in the earlier
stages, though that is not the case with all for some have to wait till they
can clear out the obstructing stuff in the mind, vital and physical
consciousness, and until then get only a touch now and then. But even at the
best this earlier spiritual light is never complete until the darkness of the
physical consciousness has been faced and overcome. It is not by one's own fault
that one falls into this state, it can come when one is trying one's best to
advance. It does not really indicate any radical disability in the nature but
certainly it is a hard ordeal and one has to stick very firmly to pass through
it. It is difficult to explain these things because the psychological necessity
is difficult for the ordinary human reason to understand or to accept.
*
3251
There is nothing to be discouraged about. The fact is
that after having been so long in the mental and vital plane you have become
aware of the physical consciousness, and the physical consciousness in everybody
is like that. It is inert, conservative, does not want to move, to change it
clings to its habits (what people call their character) or its habits (habitual
movements) cling to it and repeat themselves like a clock working in a
persistent mechanical way. When you have cleared your vital somewhat, things go
down and stick there. You see, if you have become self-conscious, you put
pressure, perhaps, but the physical responds very slowly, hardly at first it
seems to move at all. The
remedy is aspiration steady and unchanging, patient work, the psychic in the
physical, calling down the light and force into these obscure parts. The light
brings the consciousness of what is there; the force has to follow and work on
them till they change or disappear.
*
3252
It is always the effect of the physical consciousness
being uppermost (so long as it is not entirely changed) that one feels like this
like an ordinary man or worse, altogether in the outer consciousness, the
inner consciousness veiled, the action of yoga power apparently suspended. This
happens in the earlier stages also, but it is not quite complete usually then
because something of the mind and vital is active in the physical still, or even
if the interruption of
sadhana is complete, it does not last long and so one does not so much
notice it. But when from the mental and vital stage of the yoga one comes down
into the physical, this condition which is native to the physical consciousness
fully manifests and is persistent for long periods. It happens because one has
to come down and deal with this part directly by entering into it, for if that
is not done, there can be no complete change of the nature. What has to be done
is to understand that it is a stage and to persist in the faith that it will be
overcome. If this is done, then it will be easier for the Force, working behind
the veil at first, then in front to bring out the yoga consciousness into this
outer physical shell and make it luminous and responsive. If one keeps steadily
the faith and quietude, then this can be more quickly done if the faith gets
eclipsed or the quietude disturbed by the long difficulty, then it takes longer
but even then it will be done; for, though not felt, the Force is there at work.
It can only be prevented if one breaks away or throws up the
sadhana, because one becomes too impatient of the difficulty to go through
with it. That is the one thing that should never be done.
*
3253
It means that there is only one
sadhana for all parts, not a separate mental
sadhana, vital
sadhana or physical
sadhana but the action of the
sadhana is applied sometimes separately to each part, sometimes on the
contrary the action is the mental and vital together, or vital and physical
together, or all three together. But it is the same
sadhana always.
*
3254
When I explained about the physical inertia, I meant
that it was this which had been preventing the elimination of the old movements
all along and enabled them to return when they had been pushed out for it is
in the material half-conscious or subconscient that there is the bed-rock of the
resistance. When this comes up and shows itself in its separate existence, not
sustained by the mind and vital, acting by the power of its own inertia and not
covered by the sanction of the mind or the vital, only repeating the old
movements by force of old habit it is then possible to meet the resistance at
its root instead of cutting off the flowers and fruits and branches when they
appear.
It is precisely this loathness to do anything that must
be got rid of for it is simply an acquiescence in the force of the inertia. If
you can do nothing else, the old methods of violence to yourself etc. will
obviously be unfruitful you should call on the Divine Peace and force to
descend and deal with it and open yourself to the action. If this obstructing
physical is made to admit and respond to that, then the key of the solution will
be there.
*
3255
I have said that your consciousness has come down into
direct contact with the external physical nature which is always full of the
lower movements and when that happens you see them as they are, when they are
not under the control of the mind and psychic. Everybody has to come into this
direct contact otherwise there can be no transformation of this part of the
being.
*
3256
Yes, certainly, that is what I am insisting on the bringing of realisation
into this inert physical part which has made itself prominent. When any part of
the being becomes prominent like this showing all its defects and limitations
here inertia or incapacity (apravṛtti),
obscurity or forgetfulness (aprakāśa),
it is in order to get set right, it has come up for a first or preliminary
transformation. Peace and light in the mind, love and sympathy in the heart,
calm and power in the vital, a settled receptivity and response (prakāśa,
pravṛtti) in the physical are the necessary change.
*
3257
You feel as you do only because you are largely
identified with the part that has not undergone change and so you feel the
difficulty, even the impossibility of changing. But although the difficulty is
there, the impossibility does not exist. Even this identification may be
helpful, for so the change can be radical by a direct action in the part itself
or an indirect influence upon it through the mind or higher vital. Rest and
restore your physical forces, open so that the Mother's Force may freely work on
you, all trouble pass away and a new and stronger movement commence.
*
3258
What you describe is the material consciousness; it is
mostly subconscient, but the part of it that is conscious is mechanical, inertly
moved by habits or by the forces of the lower nature. Always repeating the same
unintelligent and unenlightened movements, it is attached to the routine and
established rule of what already exists, unwilling to change, unwilling to
receive the Light or obey the higher Force. Or, if it is willing, then it is
unable. Or, if it is able, then it turns the action given to it by the Light or
the Force into a new mechanical routine and so takes out of it all soul and
life. It is obscure, stupid, indolent, full of ignorance and inertia, darkness
and slowness of
tamas.
It is this material consciousness into which we are
seeking to bring first the higher (divine or spiritual) Light and Power and
Ananda, and then the supramental Truth which is the object of our yoga.
*
3259
I do not see why you doubt the fulfilment in your
material consciousness. If there is faith, quietude, openness in the rest of the
being, the material is bound to open also.
Tamas, inertia, ignorance, stupidity, littleness, obstruction to the true
movement are universal characteristics of the material consciousness, so long as
it is not enlightened, regenerated and transformed from above, they are not
peculiar to yours. Therefore, there is here no sufficient reason or
justification for the doubt you describe.
When the supramental comes down fully into the material
consciousness, it will create the right conditions there. The oneness will be
created, the constant presence and sense of contact will be felt in the material
and there will be all the actual physical contact that is needed. The sadness
you speak of is not psychic for painful longing belongs to the vital, not to
the psychic. The psychic never feels a sadness from disappointed desire, because
that is not in its nature; the sorrow it sometimes feels is when it sees the
Divine rejected or the mental, vital, physical in man or in nature turning away
from the Truth to follow perversion, darkness or ignorance. However, with the
reign of the supramental even the vital external nature is bound to change and
therefore there will be no chance of any feelings of this character.
*
3260
It is the most physical consciousness of which you have
become aware; it is like that in almost everyone: when one gets fully or
exclusively into it, one feels it to be like that of an animal, either obscure
and restless or inert and stupid and in either condition not open to the Divine.
It is only by bringing the Force and higher consciousness into it that it can
fundamentally alter. When these things show themselves do not be upset by their
emergence, but understand that they are there to be changed.
Here as elsewhere, quiet is the first thing needed, to
keep the consciousness quiet, not allow it to get agitated and in turmoil.
Then in the quiet to call for the Force to clear up all this obscurity and
change it.
*
3261
I understand that you have arrived at a prolonged lull
or period of emptiness in your
sadhana. This often happens especially when one is thrown out into the
physical and external consciousness. The nervous and physical parts then become
prominent and seem to become the standard of the being with that disappearance
of the yoga consciousness and the sensitiveness to small and outward things
which you describe. A stage like this however may very well be an interval
before a fresh progress. What you have to do is to insist on making time for
meditation at any time of the day when you are least likely to be disturbed
and through the meditation getting back the touch. There may be some difficulty
because the physical consciousness is uppermost, but a persistent aspiration
will bring it back. When once you again feel the connection re-established
between the inner being and the outer, call down the peace and light and power
into the latter so as to build up a basis for a constant consciousness in the
most external mind and being which will accompany you in work and action as much
as in meditation and solitude.
*
3262
At the mercy of the external sounds and external
bodily sensations, no control to drop the ordinary consciousness at will,
the whole tendency of the being away from yoga all that is unmistakably
applicable to the physical mind and the physical consciousness when they isolate
themselves, as it were, and take up the whole front, pushing the rest into the
background. When a part of the being is brought forward to be worked upon for
change, this kind of all-occupying emergence, the dominant activity of that part
as if it alone existed very usually happens, and unfortunately it is always what
has to be changed, the undesirable conditions, the difficulties of that part
which rise first and obstinately hold the field and recur. In the physical it is
inertia, obscurity, inability that come up and the obstinacy of these
things. The only thing to do in this unpleasant phase is to be more obstinate
than the physical inertia and to persist in a fixed endeavour steady
persistency without any restless struggle to get a wide and permanent opening
made even in this solid rock of obstruction.
*
3263
It means that you are in full grips with the
subconscient physical. However heavy and tedious the resistance you have to
persevere till you have got the Peace, Knowledge, Force down there in place of
the inertia.
*
3264
The physical
sadhana is to bring down the higher light and power and peace and
Ananda into the body consciousness, to get rid of the inertia of the
physical, the doubts, limitations, external tendency of the physical mind, the
defective energies of the vital physical (nerves) and bring in instead the true
consciousness there so that the physical may be a perfect instrument for the
Divine Will. The food and care for the body is only to get it into good
condition, afterwards it would not be necessary to attend to such things.
You need not worry about that. When there is a strong
inward tendency, the body not being yet conscious enough to share the experience
in a waking state tries to assimilate the descending forces through sleep. This
is a common experience. When it has assimilated enough, it will be more ready.
*
3265
The difference lies in the fact that those who are
doing sadhana
live on the physical plane in order to transform it under the pressure of a
Force created by the
sadhana which urges towards that and must continue till it is achieved.
Those who do not do
sadhana live on the physical plane not to transform it but to continue it as
it is there is no such Force or pressure or necessity or urge. Those who are
not sadhaks
but have their minds turned to the higher consciousness are preparing for
sadhana and will
one day do it whatever that
sadhana may be.
The prevalence of the physical difficulties when one
comes down into the physical is the same phenomenon as the prevalence of the
vital difficulties when one is on the vital plane. Transformation implies facing
the difficulties and changing or overcoming what arises in each part of the
being so that that part may respond to what is higher, but the full change of
the whole can only come by the ascent to the Above and the descent from Above.
The first step of that (usually though not always) is the realisation of the
self above and the descent of the higher peace into all the being down to the
most physical.
*
3266
So far as it [living in the physical consciousness] can
be said to be distinguishable by outward signs, it is a state of fundamental
passivity in which one is and does what the forces of the physical plane make
one be and do. When one lives in the mind, there is an active mental
intelligence and mental will that tries to control and shape action and
experience and life and everything else. When one is in the vital one is full of
energy and enthusiasm and passion and force which may be right or wrong but is
very much alive. These things in the physical inertia either disappear or become
weak or are forces that act upon the system occasionally but are not possessed
by it. This condition may not be absolute, for one has a mind and a vital, but
it is what predominates. There are two ways of getting out of this one is to
rise above in the self and see the physical from there as an instrument, not
oneself, the other is to bring down the divine Force from above and make the
physical the instrument of that Force.
*
3267
You cannot so long as you have a body live without the
physical consciousness but you can live more centrally in the psychic and other
parts and by them transform the physical.
*
3268
[Defects of the physical consciousness:] There are many but mainly obscurity,
inertia,
tamas, a passive acceptance of the play of wrong forces, inability to
change, attachment to habits, lack of plasticity, forgetfulness, loss of
experiences or realisations gained, unwillingness to accept the Light or to
follow it, incapacity (through
tamas or through attachment or through passive reaction to accustomed
forces) to do what it admits to be the Right and the Best.
*
3269
This negation is the very nature of the physical
resistance and the physical resistance is the whole base of the denial of the
Divine in the world. All in the physical is persistent, obstinate, with a
massive force of negation and inertia if it were not so,
sadhana would be extremely cursory. You have to face this character of the
physical resistance and conquer it however often it may rise. It is the price of
the transformation of the earth-consciousness.
*
3270
Apart from the individual difficulty there is a general
difficulty in the physical earth-nature. Physical nature is slow and inert and
unwilling to change; its tendency is to be still and take long periods of time
for a little progress. It is very difficult for even the strongest mental or
vital or even psychic will to overcome this inertia. It is only by bringing down
constantly the consciousness and force and light from above that it can be done.
Therefore there must be a constant will and aspiration for that and for the
change and it must be a steady and patient will not tired out even by the utmost
resistance of the physical nature.
*
3271
It is the nature of the physical mind to be obstinate.
Physical nature exists by constant repetition of the same thing only a
constant presentation of different forms of itself. This obstinate recurrence is
therefore part of its nature when it is in activity;
otherwise it remains in a dull inertia. When therefore we want to get rid of the
old movements of physical nature, they resist by this kind of obstinate
recurrence. One has to be very persistent in rejection to get rid of it.
There are two aspects of physical Nature as of all
Nature the individual and the universal. All things come into one from the
universal Nature but the individual physical keeps some of them and rejects
others, and to those it keeps it gives a personal form. So these things can be
said to be both inside it and coming outside from within or created by it
because it gives a special form and also outside and coming in from outside. But
when one wants to get rid of them, one first throws out all that is within into
the surrounding Nature from there the universal Nature tries to bring them
back or bring in new and similar things of its own to replace them. One has then
constantly to reject this invasion. By constant rejection, the force of
recurrence finally dwindles and the individual becomes free and able to bring
the higher consciousness and its movements into the physical being.
*
3272
The earth-consciousness does not want to change, so it
rejects what comes down to it from above it has always done so. It is only if
those who have taken this yoga open themselves and are willing to change their
lower nature that this unwillingness can disappear.
What stands in the way, of course, is always the vital
ego with its ignorance and the pride of its ignorance, and the physical
consciousness with its inertia which resents and resists any call to change and
its indolence which does not like to take the trouble it finds it more
comfortable to go on its own way repeating always the same old movements and, at
best, expecting everything to be done for it in some way at some time.
The first thing is to have the right inner attitude
you have that; the rest is the will to transform oneself and the vigilance to
perceive and reject all that belongs to the ego and the
tamasic persistence of the lower nature. Finally, to keep oneself always
open to the Mother in every part of the being
so that the process of transformation may find no hindrance.
*
3273
Dullness and dispersion are the two sides of the
physical's resistance to the peace and concentrated power. They correspond to
the inertia and the chaotic activity of physical Nature, that aspect of it which
makes some scientists now say that all is brought about by chance and there is
no certitude of things but only probability.
*
3274
The inertia of the physical consciousness is always a
difficult thing to eliminate it is that, more even than any vital resistance,
which keeps all the movements of the ignorance recurring even when the knowledge
is there and the will to change. But this difficulty has to be faced and
overcome by an equal perseverance in the will of the
sadhak. It is a steady flame that must burn, as steady as the obstruction is
obstinate. Do not therefore be discouraged by the persistence of the obstruction
of the ignorance. The persistence of your own will to conquer with the Mother's
force supporting it will come to the end of the resistance.
*
3275
The physical's tendency to inertia is very great; even
after the habit of living in the higher consciousness is there, some part may
feel the pressure of the inertia generally the outermost or most material
parts. The inertia usually rises up from the subconscient. It does not abolish
the higher consciousness in the physical, but dulls its action or else brings it
down from a higher to a lower level, e.g. from the intuition to the higher mind
or from the higher to the lower ranges of overmind. For some time it resists the
completeness of the
siddhi. It is only when the most material and the subconscient and the
environmental consciousness are quite liberated that this retarding or lowering
effect of the primal Inertia is entirely overcome.
*
3276
Everything can be responded to Inertia also can spread waves of itself like
other things.
*
3277
In dealing with the physical and subconscient the
working is always slower than when it acts on the mind and vital because the
resistance of physical stuff is always heavier and less intelligent and
adaptable; but as a compensation the work done in the being by this slower
movement is in the end more complete, solid and durable.
*
3278
The physical obstruction is less boisterous [than the
vital obstruction], but I have not found it less obstinate or less troublesome.
*
3279
The difficulty of the physical nature comes inevitably
in the course of the development of the
sadhana. Its obstruction, its inertia, its absence of aspiration or movement
have to show themselves before they can be got rid of otherwise it will always
remain undetected, hampering even the best
sadhana and preventing its completeness. This coming up of the physical
nature lasts longer or less according to the circumstances, but there is none
who does not go through it. What is necessary is not to get troubled or anxious
or impatient, for that only makes it last more, but to put entire confidence in
the Mother and quietly persist in faith, patience and steady will for the
complete change. It is so that the Mother's force can best work in the being.
*
3280
The first means is not to get upset when it [inertia]
comes or when it stays. The second is to detach yourself, not only yourself
above but yourself below and not identify. The third is to reject everything
that is raised by the inertia and not regard it as your own or accept it at all.
If you can do these things then there will be something in you that remains
perfectly quiet even in the greatest inertia. Through that quiet part you can
bring down peace, force, even light and knowledge into the inertia itself.
*
3281
Inertia or anything else must be felt as separate, not
part of one's real self which is one with the Divine.
*
3282
The adverse forces feel that there is something in you
that is discountenanced and restive because of the continuance of the inertia
and they hope that by pressing more and more they will create a revolt. What is
important for you in these circumstances is to make your faith, surrender and
Samata absolute. That is as great and essential a progress as to have high
experiences, etc.
*
3283
It [the use of violence for the change of the physical]
was done by some people, but I don't believe in its usefulness. No doubt the
physical is an obstinate obstacle, but it must be enlightened, persuaded,
pressed even to change, but not oppressed or violently driven. People use
violence with the mind, vital, body because they are in a hurry, but my own
observation has always been that it leads to more reactions and hindrances and
not to a genuinely sound advance.
*
3284
It [the result of the obstruction of the physical
consciousness] depends on the weak points of the individual and the stage of his
progress. In a general way the obstruction creates an inertia which impedes the
working of the higher Powers. In the early stage it can obstruct progress
altogether. Afterwards it works to slow it down or else impede it by intervals
of stationary
inertia. The main difficulty of the physical consciousness is that it is unable,
before it is transformed, of maintaining any tension of
tapasya it wants periods of assimilation, sinking back into the ordinary
consciousness to rest, also there is a constant forgetfulness of what has been
done etc.
*
3285
It [the weakness of the will] is a first result of
coming down into the physical consciousness or of the physical consciousness
coming up prominently formerly you were much in the mind and vital. The
physical consciousness is full of inertia it wants not to move but to be moved
by whatever forces and that is its habit. This inertia has to be cured by
putting it into contact with the right forces from above. That is why I asked
you to aspire for the higher wideness, purity and peace, so that that may occupy
the physical and the true Force work instead of these invading ideas and
impulses.
*
3286
The period of no-effort is usually when the physical
consciousness is uppermost for the nature of that is inertia, to be moved by
the higher forces or to be moved by the lower forces or by any forces, but not
to move itself. One must still use one's efforts if one can, but the great thing
is to be able to call down the Force from above into the physical otherwise to
remain perfectly quiet and, undisturbed, expect its coming.
*
3287
It is only by a more constant dynamic force descending
into an unalterable equality and peace that the physical nature's normal
tendency can be eradicated.
The normal tendency of the physical nature is to be
inert and in its inertia to respond only to the ordinary vital forces, not to
the higher forces. If one has a perfect equality and peace then one can be
unaffected by the spreading of the inertia
and bring down into it gradually or quickly the same peace with a force of the
higher consciousness which can alter it. When that is there there can be no
longer the difficulty and fluctuations with a preponderance of inertia such as
now you are having.
*
3288
The greater difficulty is because the
sadhana is now taking place directly on the physical plane, where the force
of a habit or habitual movement once formed is very great. When the
sadhana is taking place on the mental or vital plane, it is more easy to
control or change, because the mind and vital are more plastic than the
physical. But on the other hand if something is definitely gained on the
physical plane, there is a more lasting and complete fulfilment than when it is
on the mental or vital alone.
*
3289
Probably in '33 you were doing more
tapasya and putting a strong control on yourself? At any rate that was the
state at one time. Afterwards when you came down from the mental-vital level,
you let yourself go for a time, removing much of the control, hence now you find
a difficulty in re-establishing it, due to the habit of automatic repetition
which is a characteristic of the physical nature. You have now to get the
control in a different way by the establishment of the peace and building the
higher consciousness upon it, the spiritual control replacing that of mental
tapasya.
*
3290
No, it is not necessary to lose the mental control; it
is best to replace it gradually by the psychic or spiritual. But it happens to
many that they lose it before the other is ready or while it is still imperfect
and then the Nature-forces act in the physical consciousness which is sometimes
held by the descending Peace or Power from above, sometimes by the ordinary
Nature-forces. This alternation happens at one stage at least to almost
everybody until the higher state prevails.
This over-sensitive brooding on past blows to the vital is an unhealthy
sensitiveness. What is past ought not to have a hold like that but be allowed to
fade out.
*
3291
In the physical being the power of past impressions is
very great, because it is by the process of repeated impressions that
consciousness was made to manifest in matter and also by the habitual
reactions of consciousness to these impressions, what the psychologists, I
suppose, would call behaviour. According to one school consciousness consists
only of these things but that is the usual habit of stretching one detail of
Nature to explain the whole of her.
*
3292
What you describe is what the Gita means by the
realisation that all action is done by the
Prakriti. You feel it mechanical because you are in the physical
consciousness where all is mechanism. On the mental and vital plane one can have
the same experience, but of the actions as a play of forces. What is lacking at
present in you is the other side of the experience
viz. that of the silent
Atman or else of the witness
Purusha calm, tranquil, free, pure and undisturbed by the play of the
Prakriti. It tries to come and you are on the point of going into it, but
the tendency of externalisation is still too strong. This tendency took you when
you came down into the physical for it is the nature of the ordinary physical
consciousness to precipitate itself into the action of the external personality.
You have to get back the power of the internal consciousness above as
Atman, below as
Purusha first witness and then master of the nature.
*
3293
It is due to the influence of the physical
consciousness. The physical consciousness or at least the more external parts of
it are, as I have told you, in their nature inert obeying whatever
force they are habituated to obey, but not acting on their own initiative. When
there is a strong influence of the physical inertia or when one is down in this
part of the consciousness the mind feels like the material Nature that action of
will is impossible. Mind and vital nature are on the contrary all for will and
initiative and so when one is in mind or vital or acting under their influence
will feels itself always ready to be active.
*
3294
It is the neutrality of the physical consciousness
which says, I move only when I am moved. Move me who can.
*
3295
The physical is the slave of certain forces which
create a habit and drive it through the mechanical power of the habit. So long
as the mind gives consent, you do not notice the slavery; but if the mind
withdraws its consent, then you feel the servitude, you feel a force pushing you
in spite of the mind's will. It is very obstinate and repeats itself till the
habit, the inner habit revealing itself in the outward act, is broken. It is
like a machine which once set in motion repeats the same movement. You need not
be alarmed or distressed; a quiet persistent aspiration will bring you to the
point where the habit breaks and you are free.
*
3296
The habit in the physical is obstinate and seems
unchangeable because it always recurs even when one thinks it is gone. But it
is not really unchangeable; if the physical mind detaches itself, stands
separate, refuses to accept it, then the habit in the physical begins to lose
its force of repetition. Sometimes it goes slowly, sometimes (but this is less
frequent) it stops suddenly and recurs no more.
*
3297
The condition is that you must bring the
sadhana into your
physical consciousness and live for the
sadhana and the Divine only. You must give up positively the bad habits that
still persist and never resume those that have ceased or been interrupted. Inner
experiences are helpful to the mind and higher vital for change, but for the
lower vital and the outer being a
sadhana of self-discipline is indispensable. The external actions and the
spirit in them must change your external thoughts and actions must be for the
Divine only. There must be self-restraint, entire truthfulness, a constant
thought of the Divine in all you do. This is the way for the change of the lower
vital. By your constant self-dedication and self-discipline the force will be
brought down into the external and the change made.
The power to be separate is there in your psychic being
and you have yourself experienced that condition. Naturally, it is still only at
times, because the outer consciousness is being prepared to share in it, and it
is only when that is ready that the inner can show itself always and come out
into the outer being.
You ask whether the mind and vital do not come in the
way as well as the physical. Yes, but when I speak of the physical
consciousness, I mean the physical mind and the physical vital as well as the
body consciousness proper. This physical mind and physical vital are concerned
with the small ordinary movements of life and are governed by a very external
view of things and by habitual small reactions and do not respond at once to the
inner consciousness not because they are in active opposition to it, as the
vital mind and vital proper can be, but because they find it difficult to change
their habitual movements. It is this now that you feel and that makes you think
you have a poor responsiveness to the inner experience. But that is not a fact;
in your mind and in a great part of your vital there is a considerable capacity
of response. As for the physical its difficulty is universal in everybody and
not peculiar to you. It has come up because it always comes up in the
sadhana when the physical consciousness has to be worked upon for the
necessary change.
As soon as that is done, the difficulty you feel will first diminish and then
go.
It is this work that is going on and when you felt the
white light in meditation and the result which lasted even after opening the
eyes, the head and eyes cool and all vast and wide, it was this working taking
place in your physical mind to change it. The rest of the physical consciousness
was still undergoing another kind of working and so felt heat and not this
release and wideness. But afterwards the working can go down first to the heart
and then still lower and to all the body and the same release and wideness come
there. Naturally, at present these results are not permanent but only for a
time, they come as experiences, not lasting realisations. But it cannot be
otherwise at the present stage. These experiences, however passing, are meant to
prepare and do prepare the different parts of the nature.
I have told you that X has two different elements in
her. It is the outer mind in her that wants to do the embroidery with the idea
that others are doing it and that it will bring a special favour from the Mother
(which is not true) and says that she is doing all the work etc. If we allow her
to indulge it, it will be spiritually bad for her, especially just now when her
inner being needs to be strengthened by submission, surrender and the sacrifice
of her ego. That is why we have not looked with favour on making this change.
When it was once done, she herself repented of it and felt that she had made a
mistake. But the physical mind goes back constantly to its habitual movements
and it takes time for it to learn by experience.
You should keep the holder and use it. It is Mother's
gift to you. Write your experiences with it and take it as a sign of the
Mother's love and grace that are working in you.
*
3299
Formerly the mental will and the higher vital and the
psychic were active, so their consent was sufficient for the lower vital to be
kept down or to be ineffective. But now it is the physical mind that is active
in you and the physical mind gives a value and therefore a power to the lower
vital which it did not have before.
*
3300
The opening of the physical and the subconscient always takes a long time as it
is a thing of habits and constant repetition of the old movements, obscure and
stiff and not plastic, yielding only little by little. The physical mind can be
more easily opened and converted than the rest, but the vital-physical and the
material-physical are obstinate. The old things are always recurring there
without reason and by force of habit. Much of the vital-physical and most of the
material are in the subconscience or depend on it. It needs a strong and
sustained action to progress there.
*
3301
Until they [the material and the subconscient] aspire
or at least assent fully to the aspiration and will of the higher being, there
can be no lasting change in them.
*
3302
No, there is a limit to the resistance [of the physical
mind and the vital physical]. At any rate a time comes when the fundamental
resistance is broken for good and there is only left a dealing with details
which is not troublesome.
*
3303
A great part of the body-consciousness is subconscient
and the body-consciousness and the subconscient are closely bound together.
The body and the physical do not coincide the body
consciousness is only part of the whole physical consciousness.
*
3304
They [the physical mind and the vital physical] are
very near to it [the inconscient] except that part of the physical mind which
is trained to deal with physical objects and affairs. But that is agile and
active and competent only in its own limits. When it has to deal with
supraphysical things it becomes
incompetent, often imbecile and yet positive and arrogant and dogmatic in its
ignorance. The rest of the physical consciousness is near to the inconscient.
Here again in its own field it can have accurate perceptions and instincts if it
is able to act spontaneously; but usually in the human being it is not allowed
to do so, for the mind and vital intervene. The vital physical is entirely
irrational in its action even when it is right, it cannot explain why; for it
is made more of automatic or habitual instincts, impulses, sensations and
feelings than anything else. It is the mind that gives reasons and
justifications to its movements and if the mind stands back and judges and
questions, the vital physical can only answer I want, I like, I dislike,
I feel like that.
*
3305
Persevere quietly and let nothing discourage you. If
the quietness and cheerfulness are not constant yet, that is to be expected; it
is always like that at first when there is the working on the physical
consciousness and its obstructions. If you persevere, they will become more and
more frequent and last for a longer time, until you have a basis of peace and
happiness and whatever disturbances come on the surface will no longer be able
to penetrate or shake this basis or even cover it over except perhaps for a
moment.
The constant changing of the mood is also common enough
because the physical vital is being worked upon at the same time and this
changeability is a character of the physical vital nature. Let not that
discourage you, as soon as the basis is more fixed, this will diminish and the
vital become more settled and even.
*
3306
The unsteadiness you speak of is the nature of the
human physical mind almost everybody has it, for the physical mind goes after
all sorts of outward things. To fix the consciousness within, to keep it
concentrated on the Divine alone is a great difficulty for all, it is what makes
sadhana a thing for which long time and a slow development of the
consciousness is usually necessary, at
first at any rate. So that need not discourage you. In your inner vital there is
plenty of strong will and deep down in your psychic there is the true aspiration
and love which come up when the psychic is active and will eventually possess
the whole nature.
*
3307
It is quite natural that the unsteadiness of the
physical mind should interfere with the settling of full and constant quietude
and faith it always does with everybody, but that does not mean that this
quietude and faith will not or cannot settle in the nature. All that I meant was
that you should try to get a constant will for that quietude, so that when the
restlessness or unsteadiness come across, your will to quiet might meet it or
soon reappear and dispel the disturbance. That would make the elimination of the
restlessness or impatience easier; but in any case the Mother's force is there
working behind the variations of the surface consciousness and it will bring you
through them.
The experiences you had were renewed glimpses of the
psychic working that is going on all the time even when there is no sign of it
on the surface. The golden sword was the sword of Truth which will destroy the
difficulties.
*
3308
These small things of the physical mind are such as
everybody has and they will fall off when the truer wider consciousness comes
out. You have the understanding in your mind, but these things persist because
they really belong to the smaller vital part and when that part widens, then
they will no longer be able to recur. One can discourage them by keeping certain
ideas in mind, such as that the things which vex you belong to the nature and
can go only with the change of the nature, that one has to do the work well
oneself but not be troubled by the defects of others in their work, that a quiet
inner will for their doing right is more effective than getting vexed and
disturbed by their lapses. But fundamentally it is by the widened consciousness
in your mind and vital and physical that you will be
quite freed from these small reactions. You have only to continue with the
Mother's Force working in you and these things will smooth themselves out
hereafter.
*
3309
These small movements [useless talking etc.] are the
most difficult of all to change owing to their very smallness and the habit of
frequent indulgence as natural and trifling everyday movements of life. The best
thing to do is to mass the force and light and peace in the mind and higher
vital until they can occupy the physical mind even then through the physical
mind, which usually supports more or less these movements, they can be worked on
with more success.
The sense of helplessness, of impossibility of removal
of the obstacle, is like the obscurity itself a characteristic of the physical
consciousness which is inert and mechanical and accustomed to be moved inertly
by whatever forces take hold of it. But this sense of helplessness or
impossibility is unreal and not to yield to it, not to accept it, to remove it,
is quite possible and very necessary for overcoming the physical obstacle which
would otherwise greatly delay the progress.
*
3311
Yes; that also is the fault of the physical
consciousness. It is obsessed by the idea that, what is must be, that the
habit of things cannot be altered. This inevitability it extends not only to
what is but to what it merely thinks of as a fact it lays itself open inertly
to every suggestion or possibility that seems to be justified by the habit of
things. It is the main obstacle to the material change.
*
3312
Your suggestion that I am telling you things that are
untrue in order to encourage you is the usual stupidity of the physical mind
if it were so, it is not you who would be unfit for the yoga, but myself who
would be unfit to be, in the search for Divine Truth, anybody's guide. For one
can lead through lesser to greater Truth, but not through falsehood to Truth. As
for your fitness or unfitness for the yoga, it is not a question on which your
physical mind can be a judge it judges by the immediate appearance of things
and has no knowledge of the laws that govern consciousness or the powers that
act in yoga. In fact, the question is not of fitness or unfitness but of the
acceptance of Grace. There is no human being whose physical outer consciousness
the part of yourself in which you are now living is fit for the yoga. It is
by Grace and a light from above that it can become capable and for that the
necessity is to be persevering and open it to the Light. Everybody when he
enters the physical consciousness has the same difficulty and feels as if he
were unfit, and nothing done, nothing changed in him since he began the yoga; he
is apt to forget then all that has happened before or to feel as if he lost it
or as if it had all been unreal or untrue.
I suppose that is why you object to my phrase about
your having gone so far. I meant that you had had openings in your thinking mind
and heart and higher vital and experiences also and had seen very lucidly the
condition of your own being and nature and had gone so far that these parts were
ready for the spiritual change what remains is the physical and outer
consciousness which has to be compelled to accept the necessity of change. That
is no doubt the most difficult part of the work to be done, but it is also the
part which, if once done, makes possible the total change of the being and
nature. I therefore said that having gone so far, it would be absurd to turn
back now and give up, because this resists. It always resists in everybody and
very obstinately too. That is no reason for giving up the endeavour.
It is this consciousness that has expressed itself in
your letter or the obscure part of it which clings to its old attitude. It
does not want to fulfil the
sadhana unless it can get by it the things it wanted. It wants the
satisfaction of the ego, self-fulfilment,
appreciation, the granting of its desires. It measures the Divine Love by the
outward favours showered upon it and looks jealously to see who gets more of
these favours than itself, then says that the Divine has no love for it and
assigns reasons which are either derogatory to the Divine, or, as in your
letters, self-depreciation and a cause for despair. It is not in you alone that
this part feels and acts like that, it is in almost everybody. If that were the
only thing in you or the others, then, indeed, there would be no possibility of
yoga. But though it is strong, it is not the whole there is a psychic being
and a mind and heart influenced and enlightened by it which has other feelings
and another vision of things and aim in
sadhana. These are now covered in you by the upsurgence of this part which
has to change. It is
tamasic and does not want to change, does not want to believe unless it can
be done by reassuring the vital ego. But there is nothing new in all that it
is part of human nature and has always been there, hampering and limiting the
sadhana. Its existence is no reason for despair everyone has it and the
sadhana has to be done in spite of it, in spite of the mixture it brings
till the time comes when it has to be definitely rejected. It is difficult to do
it, but perfectly possible. These things I know and realise and it is therefore
that I insist on your persevering and encourage you to go on; it is not my
statement of the position that is untrue, it is the view of it taken by this
obscure part of your being that is unsound and an error.
*
3313
It is not because you cannot recover the true attitude,
but because you admit in part of your mind the false suggestion of your
inability that this mixed condition lasts longer than it should. It is a part of
your physical consciousness that keeps the memory of the old movements and has
the habit of admitting them and thinking them inevitable. You must insist with
the clearer part of your consciousness on the true Truth, rejecting always these
suggestions and feelings, till this obscure part also is open and admits the
Light.
*
3314
It is a suggestion of the
tamasic forces that insist on the difficulty and create it and the physical
consciousness accepts it. Aspiration is never really difficult. Rejection may
not be immediately effective, but to maintain the will of rejection and refusal
is always possible.
*
3315
What do you mean by active means? The power to refuse
and to reject is always there in the being and to go on rejecting till the
rejecting is effective. Nothing can obstruct a quiet aspiration except one's own
acquiescence in the inertia.
*
3316
The thoughts and feelings expressed in your letter are
born of the depression and have no truth in themselves apart from it. Your being
here does not in the least take up space that could be occupied by better
sadhaks. For a good
sadhak there will always be a place in one way or another. The incapacity
which you discover in yourself is simply the resistance of the habitual external
and physical nature, which everyone has and which none, however good a
sadhak, has yet been able to transform radically, because it is the last
thing to change and its resistance is acute just now because it is against this
that the power of the
sadhana is now pressing so that the change may come. When this part presents
itself, it always tries to appear as something unalterable, incapable of change,
impervious to the
sadhana. But it is not really so and one must not be deceived by this
appearance. As for the fear of madness, it is only a nervous impression which
you should throw away. It is not vital weakness that leads to such upsettings
it is an obscurity and weakness in the physical mind accompanied by movements of
an exaggerated vital nature (e.g., exaggerated spiritual ambition) which are too
strong for the mind to bear. That is not your case. You have had long experience
of inner peace, wideness,
Ananda, an inner life turned towards the Divine and one who has had that
ought not to speak of general incapacity, whatever the difficulties of the
external nature, difficulties common in one form or another to all.
*
3317
I have not the slightest doubt that you can do the
sadhana if you cleave to it not certainly by your own unaided strength,
for nobody can do that, but by the will of the psychic being in you aided by the
Divine Grace. There is a part in the physical and vital consciousness of every
human being that has not the will for it, does not feel the capacity for it,
distrusts any hope or promise of a spiritual future and is inert and indifferent
to any such thing. At one period in the course of the
sadhana this rises up and one feels identified with it. That has happened to
you now, but along with an attack of ill-health and nervous indisposition which
has turned this passage through the obscure physical into a dark and intense
trouble. With enough sleep and a quieting of the nerves and return of physical
energy that ought to disappear and it would be possible to bring the Light and
Consciousness down into this obscure part. An intense concentration bringing
struggle is not what is needed but a very quiet attitude of self-opening. Not
any effort of
sadhana just now, but the recovery of tranquillity and ease is what is
wanted at present to restore the opening of the nature.
*
3318
It was certainly not because the Mother was different
to you from other days or pushed you to a distance, but because you came rather
shut up in that part of your physical being which is still shrinking from the
Light. It is this part which was always fundamentally responsible for all your
bad passages and painful movements even when the direct difficulty was higher
up. Its nature is to cling to the old habitual movements, shrink from yogic
consciousness and shut up doors and windows against the help that is offered and
lament in the darkness when it feels itself hurt. This is a thing that everybody
must get rid of who wants to progress. Do not go on identifying yourself with
this part and
calling it yourself. Get back into your inner being and look at this only as a
small though obstinate part of the nature that has to change. For apart from its
insistence there is no reason why your way should enter into a desert. It should
enter into a wideness of liberation open to the calm and peace and power and
light, a consciousness that is wider than the personal and into which the ego
can happily disappear.
*
3319
As to what has happened in your
sadhana, it is that you have allowed yourself to fall into a groove of the
physical mind and of the external vital nature and got fixed in a persistent or
constantly recurrent repetition of the ideas and feelings which they present to
you feelings of settled disappointment and discouragement and pessimism about
yourself and your spiritual future, and ideas or, if you will allow me to call
them so, notions which come to the support of these feelings and sustain them.
The result of this is to shut you up against the contact and spiritual influence
and help you were once feeling or beginning to feel from us. It also shuts you
up against your own deeper self and sterilises your personal effort. An accident
of this kind is common enough in the path of spiritual effort, and the first
thing to be done to get rid of its effects is to throw away resolutely the
persistent ideas and feelings which keep you in the groove. I do not know
whether you can return to the former condition, for it is seldom that one can go
back to a point in the past; but it is always possible for you to go forward,
recovering the force for propulsion of what you then gained and have certainly
still within you assimilated in your inner being. If you want to carry on some
part of the yoga by your active efforts and aspiration, there is no reason why
you should not find back that capacity; but the first effort to be made is to
reject persistently, fully and tenaciously not for two or three days, but
always, so long as they insist or return these disabling thoughts and feelings
which hamstring all hope and faith in you, not to accept them, not to justify
them, not to give them by your acquiescence the right to go on harping on the
same note always of discouragement,
incapacity and failure. The ideas by which you justify them are, I repeat,
notions only of the physical mind, not true things, e.g., the notion that you
cannot understand a given idea (intellectually accepting or not accepting is
another matter); for it is perfectly certain that your thinking intelligence is
quite trained enough to understand anything that is put before it. It is only
the physical mind that is limited even in the most intelligent and opens up fits
of stupidity or at least larger or smaller spaces of blank non-understanding in
the face of unaccustomed ideas or a new line of possible experience or anything
else either alien to the mind's habits or unwelcome to something in the vital
parts. I suppose we have all had experience of this incapable element in our
nature, and if one fixes oneself in it, it can make even things that would
ordinarily be easy for us seem difficult things and things difficult seem
impossible. But why should a mind trained to think allow this poorer part of
itself to dominate it? So with the other notions. There is nothing anyone else
can do in the way of yoga that you cannot do if you have the fixed will to do
it; some things may take a longer time because of past training, habits, mental
associations but there is nothing impossible, too difficult, no inherently
insuperable obstacle.
*
3320
It is the instinctive (not mental) will in the outer
being that is blind the inner mind knows and understands and when it comes out
it enlightens the rest so that all is clear. But the outer being readmits the
darkness and confusion through a wrong movement of the vital or through an inert
acceptance of the obscurity of the ignorant physical consciousness and the
knowledge gets darkened over. But it is there and has only to come out again.
The physical consciousness is constitutionally ignorant it may be made to
understand, but it goes on forgetting and feeling as if it had never known
till the Force and Light finally get hold of it and then it forgets no more.
What you have been doing is to penetrate more into the
physical consciousness where the peace and light of the higher consciousness has
to be brought down. This often brings at first some relaxation of the intensity
of experience, dispersion or recurrence of old movements which had been pushed
out from the other levels, but one must not be discouraged by that. The remedy
is to be more insistent on bringing down the higher forces (peace etc.) into
this field.
*
3322
The push to externalisation must be rejected always
it is a way the physical consciousness has of slipping out of the condition of
concentrated
sadhana. To keep in the inner consciousness and work from it on the external
being till that also is ready is very necessary when the work of change is being
specially directed towards the physical consciousness.
*
3323
The moonlit
maidān is the spiritual consciousness at the doors of which you are
standing as it were and feeling its peace and ease.
The obstacle or wall of bondage which you feel is
simply that of the habits of the ordinary physical consciousness. It is so with
all, the ordinary vital nature with its ego, desire, passions, disturbances,
and the ordinary physical nature with its strong habits and outwardness are the
chief obstacles that have to be overcome in the nature. When they fall quiet,
then it is easier to enter into the true consciousness and unite with the
Mother. But they are not accustomed to quietness and as soon as it is felt they
want to come out of it and resume their ordinary movements. But this will go
when the inner has sufficiently gained on the outer to dominate it. The inner
things will grow and come out more and more as you feel the inner path growing
until they are strong enough to rule the outer conduct.
The obstacles you feel, the surging up of old things and repetition of
restlessness etc. are due to this strength of habit of the physical nature it
lives by repeating always the same things and the same movements to which it has
been accustomed in the past. The inner influence as it comes out will more and
more create for it new habits of thought and feeling and action and it will then
dwell firmly in these and not in the things of the old nature.
*
3324
The narrowness etc. of which you complain are normal to
the physical nature. It is the same thing acting in a different way which makes
X rebellious to advice and full of irritation and bad temper when her mistakes
are shown to her. The physical nature of almost everybody is like that,
intolerant, easily irritated, lacking in patience when dealing with others. But
this physical nature can be replaced and changed by the psychic nature and you
have had the experience of what this psychic nature is and how it acts. You know
therefore what change has to come in you and you know also that this new nature
is already there in you preparing to come out. Have the faith therefore that it
is sure to come and when the physical comes and covers with the old movements
try to remember that and remind the physical mind that it is only by this change
in yourself and all that things can change. What is needed now is all should
make this psychic change their main object, each for himself. If some develop
it, then it will spread more rapidly among the rest. It is so only that the
present state of the physical consciousness full of ego and strife can become
what it should be.
*
3325
What has happened is that the psychic in you which had
formerly been constantly in action in the mind and vital was for a time clouded
or covered over by the ignorance of the physical consciousness. It is the
psychic that connects you with the Mother and turns all the movements of your
being towards her or drew them from her or made them united with and dependent
on her. It had so done with all your mental and vital being and its movements
and it had guarded you against all wrong mental and vital suggestions and
attacks, showing you what was true and what was false. Now it is this psychic
being which has manifested again in your physical consciousness also. You have
only to live in that and your whole being will be turned towards the Mother,
remain in union with her and be protected from doubt and error and false
suggestion and you can once more progress as you did before towards the full
realisation of the
sadhana.
*
3326
All that is very good it is the psychic condition
that is increasing. The peace and spontaneous knowledge are in the psychic being
and from there they spread to mind and vital and physical. It is in the outer
physical consciousness that the difficulty still tries to persist and brings the
restlessness sometimes into the physical mind, sometimes into the nerves,
sometimes in the shape of bodily trouble into the body. But all these things can
and must go. Even the illnesses can go entirely with the growth of peace and
power in the nerves and physical cells stomach pains, weakness of the eyes and
everything else.
*
3327
The habit of return of these feelings belongs to the
physical consciousness and in his physical consciousness the human being is
always weak and unable to get rid of or resist its habitual movements. There are
three things that help him to do so (apart from his mental will which is not
always strong enough to do it). There is first the psychic being; for a few days
your psychic was extremely active and pushing these movements away whenever they
tried to come or throwing them out soon when they got in. This activity of the
psychic will return and eventually come down into the physical consciousness
itself; then there will be very little difficulty. The second is the inner
consciousness always awake. At present that is difficult, because to keep the
inner consciousness awake at all times can
only come by a deepening of yourself so that the veil between the outer and
inner which lifts only in concentration may cease to exist even when one is in
the ordinary unconcentrated condition. It is for this deepening that the strong
tendency to go inside comes upon you. Lastly, the Mother's force always there
and receiving also a response at once from the physical consciousness. These
three things together can do anything. It takes time to make them all three
constantly active together, but that is sure to come and with them these inner
difficulties will disappear.
*
3328
It is inevitable that in the course of the
sadhana all sorts of conditions should come through which one is led towards
the fullness of the true consciousness. You are now, as are most, in the
physical consciousness and its principal difficulty is externalisation and this
covering up of the active experience so that one does not know what is going on
inside or feels as if nothing were going on. When that happens, it means that
something has come up, some part or layer of the physical, which needs to be
worked on and, when that has been done, it may take longer or shorter, the
conscious active inner experience recommences. The muteness in the mind is not a
bad thing in itself, it is a favourable condition for the working. Also what you
describe as taking place in the head, must be the working of the Force there,
it sometimes gives the impression of a headache. There must be a working in the
physical mind to get rid of some difficulty or else to prepare it better for the
admission of what comes from above.
It is necessary to have a great patience so as to go
through these conditions and not get apprehensive or restless and a confidence
that all difficulties will be overcome.
*
3329
It is not that something is always wrong within you
but that there is still in the subconscient physical being a part that was
accustomed to respond very strongly to the vibrations of these
thoughts and feelings and can still respond. Usually you would not allow them to
come up at all in thought or feeling form it would only manifest as a
depression of the body or fatigue or, if it came, you would get over it at
once and the vibrations would sink down and disappear. But in the atmosphere
heavily surcharged with this invasion of the ordinary consciousness there is a
lessened elasticity in the physical consciousness and they were able to rise.
This is an exceedingly common experience. One has to detach oneself from these
still weak parts and regard them as if a detail in the machinery that has to be
set right. In your case also your nervous (vital physical) being is exceedingly
conscious and sensitive and anything wrong in the atmosphere affects it more
than it would most of the others.
*
3330
What you felt in your chest was the attempt of the old
Ignorance to bring back the vital restlessness, depression, confusion, through
the physical attack for it is on the obscuration of the physical that they now
depend for stopping the Light and Force from coming and for obscuring their
working and creating disturbance and destroying the quietude. Reject it as you
did this time whenever it tries to come.
*
3331
It is very good that all should have gone like that and
the true consciousness affirmed its control in the physical. These things are
indeed attacks intended to prevent the control being established in the physical
being as it was in the inner parts. Wherever the physical consciousness opens,
the Force can sweep out all that could trouble. Sometimes it takes a little time
to overcome the resistance, but finally all disappears before it.
*
3332
It is indeed the body consciousness that is still
offering difficulties but when the restlessness and confusion come, you
must immediately offer it up and call for the opening of the part that resists.
In this way it is possible to establish a condition in which as soon as the
difficulty is there, the counteracting Force also comes. Then no long continued
difficulty will be possible.
*
3333
For your
sadhana it is necessary first to establish the entire openness of the
physical being and stabilise in it the descent of calm, strength, purity and joy
with the feeling of the presence and the working of the Mother's Force in you.
It is only on that assured basis that one can become an entirely effective
instrument for the work. Once that is done, there is still the dynamic
transformation of the instrumental being to achieve and that depends on a
descent of a higher and higher power of consciousness into the mind, vital and
body by higher being meant nearer and nearer to the supramental Light and
Force. But that can only be done on the basis of which I have spoken and with
the psychic being constantly in front and acting as an intermediary between the
instrumental mind, vital and body and these higher planes of being. So this
basic stabilisation must first be completed.
*
3334
Yes, this is the time when you have to persist till you
are quite settled in the inner consciousness and the persistence of the silence
and peace is a sign that it is now possible. When one feels this kind of
silence, peace and wideness, one may be sure that it is that of the true being,
the real self, penetrating into the mind and vital and perhaps also the physical
consciousness (if it is complete). The restlessness of the physical is probably
due to the peace and silence having touched the physical but not yet penetrated
the material or body consciousness. The old restlessness is there in the body
struggling to remain, although it cannot invade either mind or vital or even in
a general way the physical consciousness as a whole. If the peace descends
there, the restlessness will disappear.
The sex-sensation comes from the waking subconscient.
When it is unable to manifest in the waking consciousness, it comes up from the
subconscient in sleep. The mind must not allow itself to be disturbed it will
go out with the rest.
*
3335
This is a form that the resistance in the physical
easily and often takes a restlessness of discomfort in the nervous system.
When it is in the legs, it means that it is the most material part of the
consciousness that is the seat of the trouble. Since it has come up, it ought to
be thrown out for good. Probably this part has become sufficiently conscious to
feel the greater pressure when Mother comes down, but not enough to be able to
receive and assimilate it, hence the uneasiness and resistance. If so, it should
go of itself with a little more opening there.
*
3336
What you describe dullness, uneasiness, weakness,
feeling old and worn out or ill, are the reactions that come when the inertia of
the physical Nature is resisting the Light the others about sense of feeling
dignity, self-respect (of the ego) are the reactions of the vital. Both must be
refused acceptance. There is only one aim to be followed, the increase of the
Peace, Light, Power and the growth of a new consciousness in the being. With
that new consciousness the true knowledge, understanding, strength, feeling will
come, creating harmony instead of revolt and struggle and union with the Divine
consciousness and will.
*
3337
A certain inertia, tendency to sleep, indolence,
unwillingness or inability to be strong to work or spiritual effort for long at
a time, is in the nature of the human physical consciousness. When one goes down
into the physical for its change (that has been the general condition here for a
long time), this tends to increase. Even sometimes when the pressure of the
sadhana in the physical increases or when one has to go much inside,
this temporarily increases the body either needing more rest or turning the
inward movement into a tendency to sleep or be at rest. You need not, however,
be anxious about that. After a time this rights itself; the physical
consciousness gets the true peace and calm in the cells and feels at rest even
in full work or in the most concentrated condition and this tendency of inertia
goes out of the nature.
*
3338
There is always more chance of inertia at night because
of the large part taken by the subconscient in sleep but, apart from that
there should be a reaction (internal) against the rising of inertia. A quietness
in the cells of the body, even a sense of immobility (so that the body seems to
be moved rather than to move) is a different thing and easily distinguishable
from the inertia. The downflow of peace usually brings much of the static
Brahman into the consciousness down to the physical, so that one feels the
Upanishadic unmoving it moves.
*
3339
I don't know of any effective outward means of getting
rid of it [inertia]. Some in hours when they cannot do
sadhana, spend the time in other occupations reading, writing or working
and do not try at all to concentrate. But I suspect what you need is more
strength in the body.
*
3340
It is quite true that the physical exercise is very
necessary to keep off
tamas. I am glad you have begun it and I trust you will keep it up.
Physical
tamas in its roots can be removed only by the descent and the
transformation, but physical exercise and regular activity of the body can
always prevent a
tamasic condition from prevailing in the body.
*
3341
A strong mind and body and life-force are needed in the
sadhana. Especially steps should be taken to throw out
tamas and bring strength and force into the frame of the nature.
The way of yoga must be a living thing, not a mental
principle or a set method to be stuck to against all necessary variations.
*
3342
The weakness of the body has to be cured, not
disregarded. It can only be cured by bringing in strength from above, not by
merely forcing the body.
*
3343
Overstraining only increases the inertia the mental
and vital will may force the body, but the body feels more and more strained and
finally asserts itself. It is only if the body itself feels a will and force to
work that one can do that.
*
3344
The first rule is there must be sufficient sleep and
rest, not in excess but not too little.
The body must be trained to work, but not strained
beyond its utmost capacity.
The outer means without the inner is not effective. Up
to a certain point by a progressive training the body may be made more
capable of work. But the important thing is to bring down the force for work and
the Rasa
of work in the body. The body will then do what is asked of it without grudging
or feeling fatigue.
Even so, even when the force and
Rasa are there, one must keep one's sense of measure.
Work is a means of self-dedication to the Divine, but
it must be done with the necessary inner consciousness in which the outer vital
and physical also share.
A lazy body is certainly not a proper instrument for
yoga
it must stop being lazy. But a fatigued and unwilling body also cannot receive
properly or be a good instrument. The proper thing is to avoid either extreme.
*
3345
If your body is aching after the work, it may be that
you are doing too much for your physical strength and straining the body. When
you work, the Force comes down in you, takes the form of vital energy and
supports your body so that it does not at the time feel the strain; but
when you stop, the body goes back to its normal condition and feels the effects
it has not yet been sufficiently open to keep the Force. You must see whether
this effect (of pain) continues; if it passes away, it is all right; otherwise
you must take care and not overstrain yourself by doing too much.
*
3346
It is owing to the good psychic condition in which you
are that this lightness and power of work comes into you; for then you are open
to the Mother's Force and it is that that works in you, so that there is no
fatigue. You felt the fatigue formerly after the work was over because
your vital was open and the vital energy was the instrument of the work, but the
body consciousness was not quite open and had some strain. This time the
physical seems to have opened also.
*
3347
The pain, burning, restlessness, weeping and inability
to work which you feel, come when there is some difficulty or resistance in some
part of the nature. When it comes call on the Mother and reject these things;
turn to her for the peace and quietude to return to your mind and settle in the
heart, so that there shall be no place for these other things.
It is the attachment to food, the greed and eagerness
for it, making it an unduly important thing in the life, that is contrary to the
spirit of yoga. To be aware that something is pleasant to the palate is not
wrong; only one must have no desire nor hankering for it, no exultation in
getting it, no displeasure or regret at not getting it. One must be calm and
equal, not getting upset or dissatisfied when the food is not tasty or not in
abundance eating the fixed amount that is necessary, not less or more. There
should be neither eagerness nor repugnance.
To be always thinking about food and troubling the mind
is quite the wrong way of getting rid of the food-desire. Put the food element
in the right place in the life, in a small corner, and don't concentrate on it
but on other things.
*
3349
It is certainly not very yogic to be so harassed by the
importunity of the palate. I notice that these petty desires, which plenty of
people who are not yogis at all nor aspirants for yoga know how to put in their
proper place, seem to take an inordinate importance in the consciousness of the
sadhaks here not all, certainly, but many. In this as in many other
matters they do not seem to realise that, if you want to do yoga, you must take
more and more in all matters, small or great, the yogic attitude. In our path
that attitude is not one of forceful suppression, but of detachment and equality
with regard to the objects of desire. Forceful suppression1 stands on the same level as free indulgence; in both cases, the
desire remains; in the one it is fed by indulgence, in the other it lies latent
and exasperated by suppression. It is only when one stands back, separates
oneself from the lower vital, refusing to regard its desires and clamours as
one's own, and cultivates an entire equality and equanimity in the consciousness
with respect to them that the lower vital itself becomes gradually purified and
itself also calm and equal. Each wave of
desire as it comes must be observed, as quietly and with as much unmoved
detachment as you would observe something going on outside you, and allowed to
pass, rejected from the consciousness, and the true movement, the true
consciousness steadily put in its place.
What if people were to remember that they were here for
yoga, make that the salt and savour of their existence and acquire
samatā of the palate! My experience is that if they did that, all the
trouble would disappear and even the kitchen difficulties and the defects of the
cooking would vanish.
*
3350
Do not trouble your mind about food. Take it in the
right quantity (neither too much nor too little), without greed or repulsion, as
the means given you by the Mother for the maintenance of the body, in the right
spirit, offering it to the Divine in you; then it need not create
tamas.
*
3351
What is necessary is to take enough food and think no
more about it, taking it as a means for the maintenance of the physical
instrument only. But just as one should not overeat, so one should not diminish
unduly it produces a reaction which defeats the object for the object is not
to allow either the greed for food or the heavy
tamas of the physical which is the result of excessive eating to interfere
with the concentration on the spiritual experience and progress. If the body is
left insufficiently nourished, it will think of food more than otherwise.
*
3352
These things still rise in you because they have been
for so long prominent difficulties and, as far as the first is concerned,
because you gave it much justification from the mind at one time. But if the
inner consciousness is growing like that they are sure to go. Only if they rise,
don't give them harbourage. Perhaps with regard to the greed for food, your
attitude has not been
quite correct. Greed for food has to be overcome, but it has not to be given too
much thought. The proper attitude to food is a certain equality. Food is for the
maintenance of the body and one should take enough for that what the body
needs; if one gives less the body feels the need and hankers; if you give more,
then that is indulging the vital. As for particular foods the palate likes, the
attitude of the mind and vital should be, If I get, I take; if I don't get, I
shall not mind. One should not think too much of food either to indulge or
unduly to repress that is the best.
*
3353
Too much eating makes the body material and heavy,
eating too little makes it weak and nervous one has to find the true harmony
and balance between the body's need and the food taken.
*
3354
It depends on what you can digest. If you can digest,
there is no harm in taking more since you feel hungry. All these things depend
upon what is the true need of the body and that may differ in different cases
according to the constitution of the body, the amount of work done or exercise
taken. It is possible that you have reduced your food too much, so you can try
taking more.
*
3355
But it is quite natural. Exercise is always supposed to
increase the appetite as the body needs more food to restore the extra expense
of energy put out. Normally the more physical work the body has to do the more
food it needs. On the other hand mental work requires no increase of food that
has been ascertained scientifically by experiment. Hunger may increase by other
causes, but when it coincides with the taking up of play or physical exercise of
a strenuous character that is sufficient to explain it.
*
3356
It is true that as one reaches an advanced age a diminished diet may become
desirable.
*
3357
Neither neglect this turn of the nature (food-desire)
nor make too much of it; it has to be dealt with, purified and mastered but
without giving it too much importance. There are two ways of conquering it one
of detachment, learning to regard food as only a physical necessity and the
vital satisfaction of the stomach and the palate as a thing of no importance;
the other is to be able to take without insistence or seeking any food given and
to find in it (whether pronounced good or bad by others) the equal
rasa, not of the food for its own sake, but of the universal
Ananda.
*
3358
These generalisations on either side are not of much
value. One does not need to get a hatred for food in order to get rid of the
greed for food. On the other hand, to develop a dislike for certain things may
help to reject them but that too is not always the cure, for they may remain
in spite of the dislike.
*
3359
It is a mistake to neglect the body and let it waste
away; the body is the means of the
sadhana and should be maintained in good order. There should be no
attachment to it, but no contempt or neglect either of the material part of our
nature.
In this yoga the aim is not only the union with the
higher consciousness but the transformation (by its power) of the lower
including the physical nature.
It is not necessary to have desire or greed of food in
order to eat. The yogi eats not out of desire, but to maintain the body.
*
3360
The attachment to good food must be given up as also
the
personal attachment to position and service; but it is not indispensably
necessary for that purpose to take to an ascetic diet or to give up all means of
action such as money and service. The yogin has to become
niḥsva in this sense that he feels that nothing belongs to him but
all to the Divine and he must be ready at any time to give up all to the Divine.
But there is no meaning in throwing away everything in order to be externally
niḥsva without any imperative cause.
*
3361
I suppose you have become aware of the principle of
hunger in the vital-physical. It is not really either by satisfying it or
forcibly denying it that it will go it is by putting a will on it to change
and bringing down a higher consciousness that it can change.
*
3362
To suppress hunger like that is not good, it very often
creates disorders. I doubt whether fatness or thinness of a healthy kind depends
on the amount of food taken there are people who eat well and remain thin and
others who take only one meal a day and remain fat. By underfeeding (taking less
than the body really needs) one may get emaciated, but that is not a healthy
state. The doctors say it depends mostly on the working of certain glands.
Anyhow the important thing is now to get the nervous strength back.
As for the liver also eating little does not help, very
often it makes the liver sluggish so that it works less well. What is
recommended for liver trouble is to avoid greasy food and much eating of sweets
and that is also one way of avoiding fat. But to eat too little is not good it
may be necessary in some stomach or intestinal illness, but not for the ordinary
liver trouble.
*
3363
As for
Sannyasis and food,
Sannyasis put a compulsion on these desires in this and other matters they
take ascetic food as a principle; but this does not necessarily kill the greed
for food,
it remains compressed and, if the compulsion or principle is removed, it can
come up again stronger than before for compression without removal often
increases the force of these things instead of destroying them.
*
3364
When there is this suppression [of the desire to eat] I
have always noticed that there comes for a time a strong eagerness or necessity
for eating largely as if the body were taking its compensation for the past
want.
*
3365
The first thing I tell people when they want not to eat
or sleep is that no yoga can be done without sufficient food and sleep (see the
Gita on this point). Fasting or sleeplessness make the nerves morbid and excited
and weaken the brain and lead to delusions and fantasies. The Gita says, yoga is
not for one who eats too much or sleeps too much, neither is it for one who does
not eat or does not sleep, but if one eats and sleeps suitably
yuktāhārī yuktanidraḥ then one can do it best. It is the same with
everything else. How often have I said that excessive retirement was suspect to
me and that to do nothing but meditate was a lop-sided and therefore unsound
sadhana?
*
3366
The idea of giving up food is a wrong inspiration. You
can go on with a small quantity of food, but not without food altogether, except
for a comparatively short time. Remember what the Gita says, Yoga is not for
one who eats in excess nor for one who abstains from eating altogether. Vital
energy is one thing of that one can draw a great amount without food and often
it increases with fasting; but physical substance, without which life loses its
support, is of a different order.
*
3367
One can bring down the strength, but it is also necessary to see that the body
has sufficient food, sleep and rest absence of these things strain the nerves
and if the nerves are strained the body feels fatigue becomes weakened.
*
3368
Not to eat as the method of getting rid of the greed of
food is the ascetic way. Ours is equanimity and non-attachment.
*
3369
It is a fact that by fasting, if the mind and the
nerves are solid or the will-force dynamic, one can get for a time into a state
of inner energy and receptivity which is alluring to the mind and the usual
reactions of hunger, weakness, intestinal disturbance, etc., can be wholly
avoided. But the body suffers by diminution and there can easily develop in the
vital a morbid overstrained condition due to the inrush of more vital energy
than the nervous system can assimilate or co-ordinate. Nervous people should
avoid the temptation to fast, it is often accompanied or followed by delusions
and a loss of balance. Especially if there is a motive of hunger-strike or that
element comes in, fasting becomes perilous, for it is then an indulgence of a
vital movement which may easily become a habit injurious and pernicious to the
sadhana. Even if all these reactions are avoided, still there is no
sufficient utility in fasting, since the higher energy and receptivity ought to
come not by artificial or physical means but by intensity of the consciousness
and strong will for the
sadhana.
*
3370
I never heard of it; but it [prolonged fasting] is just
the way to get the wrong realisation. The nerves get into an excited tense
condition (when they do not collapse) and invent realisations or open to a wrong
Force. At least that often happens.
*
3371
I think it is not safe to admit any suggestion of not eating sometimes it
opens the door for the non-eating force to take hold of the mind and there is
trouble. That comes easily because the inner being of course does not need any
food and this non-need is attempted to be thrown by some forces on the body also
which is not under the same happy law. It is better to allow the condition [of
concentration and peace] to grow in intensity until it can last even through the
meal and after. I suppose it is not really the meal that disturbs but the coming
out into the outer consciousness which is a little difficult to avoid when one
goes to eat; but that can be overcome in time.
*
3372
You must not let that movement [reduction of food] go
too far. It is one of the dangers of the
sadhana, because of the ascetic turn of yoga in the past that as experiences
come the suggestion comes that food or sleep etc. are not necessary and also
there may come an inclination in the body not to eat or not to sleep. But if
that is accepted the results are often disastrous. It is no more to be accepted
than the inertia itself.
*
3373
If the pains are strong, you can abstain from work for
a day or two until they have subsided. Of course if you feel that you suffer
from anything else but liquid food, that settles the question. You can take
liquid food only and if you take the liquid food only then you will not be
strong enough to work. But usually the thought takes a big part in determining
these things. The mind has the impression that any solid food will hurt and the
body follows so naturally as a result any solid food does begin to hurt.
*
3374
The mental or vital vigour does not or need not depend
on the food it is the physical that after a time begins to get strained
if there is not sufficient nourishment.
*
3375
The transformation to which we aspire is too vast and
complex to come at one stroke; it must be allowed to come by stages. The
physical change is the last of these stages and is itself a progressive process.
The inner transformation cannot be brought about by
physical means either of a positive or a negative nature. On the contrary, the
physical change itself can only be brought about by a descent of the greater
supramental consciousness into the cells of the body. Till then at least the
body and its supporting energies have to be maintained in part by the ordinary
means, food, sleep, etc. Food has to be taken in the right spirit, with the
right consciousness; sleep has to be gradually transformed into the yogic
repose. A premature and excessive physical austerity,
Tapasya, may endanger the process of the
sadhana by establishing a disturbance and abnormality of the forces in the
different parts of the system. A great energy may pour into the mental and vital
parts but the nerves and the body may be overstrained and lose the strength to
support the play of these higher energies. This is the reason why an extreme
physical austerity is not included here as a substantive part of the
sadhana.
There is no harm in fasting from time to time for a day
or two or in reducing the food taken to a small but sufficient modicum; but
entire abstinence for a long period is not advisable.
That is all right then. It is good that any necessity of your going now has been obviated.
As to the subject matter of the other letter. For the last year or about no onions are being used in the Asram food. What you take for onions is a vegetable called the leek, not much known here, which when put in raw or in quantities has a smell and may be mistaken for onions. In this dish they were put in raw, that is why you felt it like that. Mother had asked that they should not be put in without cooking them, for many people do not like the taste or smell of raw leeks.
I think the importance of
sattwic food from the spiritual point of view has been exaggerated. Food is rather a question of hygiene and many of the sanctions and prohibitions laid down in ancient religions had more a hygienic that a spiritual motive. The Gita's definitions seem to point in the same direction
tamasic food, it seems to say, is what is stale or rotten with the virtue gone out of it,
rajasic food is that what is too acrid, pungent etc., heats the blood and spoils the health,
sattwic food is
what is pleasing, healthy etc. It may well be that
different kinds of food nourish the action of the different
gunas and so indirectly are helpful or harmful apart from their physical action. But that is as far as we can confidently go. What particular eatables are or are not
sattwic is another question and more difficult to determine. Spiritually, I should say that the effect of food depends more on the occult atmosphere and influences that come with it than on anything in the food itself. Vegetarianism is another question altogether; it stands, as you say, in a will not to do harm to the more conscious forms of life for the satisfaction of the belly.
As to the question of practising to take all kinds of food with equal rása, it is not necessary to practise nor does it really come by practice. One has to acquire equality within in the consciousness and as this equality grows one can extend it or apply it to the various fields of the activity of the consciousness.
*
3377
I think onions can be described as
rajaso-tamasic
in their character. They are heavy and material and at the same time excitant of
certain strong material-vital forces. It is obvious that if one wants to conquer
the physical passions and is still very much subject to the body nature and the
things that affect it, free indulgence in onions is not advisable. It is only
for those who have risen above the body consciousness and mastered it and are
not affected by these things that it does not at all matter; for them the use of
this or that food or its desire makes no difference. At the same time I must say
that the abstinence from
rajasic or
tamasic foods does not of itself assure freedom from the things they help to
stimulate. Vegetarians, for instance, can be as sensual and excitable as meat
eaters; a man may abstain from onions and yet be in these respects no better
than before. It is a change of consciousness that is effective and this kind of
abstention helps that only in so far as it tends to create a less heavy and more
refined and plastic physical consciousness for the higher will to act upon. That
is something, but it is not all; the change of consciousness can come even in
spite of non-abstinence.
Onions are allowed here because the palate of the
sadhaks demands something to give a taste to the food. We do not insist on
these details, or make an absolutely strict rule, as the stress here is more on
the inward change, the outward coming as its result. Only so much is insisted on
as is essential for organisation and inner and outer discipline and to point the
way to an indispensable self-control. It is pressed on all that the greed of the
palate has to be conquered, but it has to be done in the last resort from
within, as also the other passions and desires of the lower nature.
*
3378
It is no part of this yoga to suppress taste,
rasa, altogether. What is to be got rid of is vital desire and
attachment, the greed of food, being overjoyed at getting the food you like,
sorry and discontented when you do not have it, giving an undue importance to
it. Equality is here the test as in so many other matters.
*
3379
No it [taste] is not a bondage, if there is no
attachment. Taste is natural and quite permissible so long as one is not the
slave of the palate. Certainly, the enjoyment of taste can be offered up. I
don't know that there is any fruit of eating in the sense of the phrase in the
Gita.
*
3380
Taste is no more a guilty thing than sight or hearing.
It is the desire that it awakens that has to be thrown away.
It is possible to get rid of taste like Chaitanya, for
it is something that depends on the consciousness and so inhibition is possible.
In hypnotic experiments it is found that suggestion can make sugar taste bitter
or bitter things sweet. Berkeley and physiology are both right. There is a
certain usually fixed relation between the consciousness in the palate and the
guṇa of the food, but the consciousness can alter the relation if it
wants or inhibit it altogether. There are yogis who make themselves insensitive
to pain also and that too can be done by hypnosis.
Another method is to find all things good to the taste without attachment to
any.
*
3381
It is better to be careful in these matters of food
etc., as in the stage through which your
sadhana is passing there is a considerable sensitiveness in the
vital-physical part of the being and it may be easily disturbed by a wrong
impact or a wrong movement like overfeeding.
*
3382
When the physical consciousness has been sensitivised,
too much or heavy food becomes offensive to it.
*
3383
It is the habit in the subconscient material that feels
an artificial need created by the past and does not care whether it is harmful
or disturbing to the nerves or not. That is the nature of all intoxicants (wine,
tobacco, cocaine etc.), people go on even after the deleterious effects have
shown themselves and even after all real pleasure in it has ceased because of
this artificial need (it is not real). The will has to get hold of this
subconscient persistence and dissolve it.
*
3384
These intoxicants [Bhang, etc.] put one in relation
with a vital world in which such things [music, song etc.] exist.
This is not a yoga in which physical austerities have
to be done for their own sake. Sleep is necessary for the body just as food is.
Sufficient sleep must be taken, but no excessive sleep. What sufficient sleep is
depends on the need of the body.
*
3386
If you do not sleep enough the body and the nervous envelope will be weakened
and the body and the nervous envelope are the basis of the
sadhana.
*
3387
It must be the want of sleep that keeps your nervous
system exposed to weakness it is a great mistake not to take sufficient sleep.
Seven hours is the minimum needed. When one has a very strong nervous system one
can reduce it to six, sometimes even five but it is rare and ought not to be
attempted without necessity.
*
3388
The normal allowance of sleep is said to be 7 to 8
hours except in advanced age when it is said to be less. If one takes less (5 to
6 for instance) the body accommodates itself somehow, but if the control is
taken off it immediately wants to make up for its lost arrears of the normal 8
hours. So often when one has tried to live on too little food, if one relaxes,
the body becomes enormously rapacious for food until it has set right the credit
and loss account. At least it often happens like that.
*
3389
It is not possible to do at once what you like with the
body. If the body is told to sleep only 2 or 3 hours, it may follow if the will
is strong enough but afterwards it may get exceedingly strained and even break
down for want of needed rest. The yogis who minimise their sleep succeed only
after a long
tapasya in which they learn how to control the forces of Nature governing
the body.
*
3390
Both for fevers and for mental trouble sleep is a great
help and its absence very undesirable it is the loss of a curative agency.
*
3391
It is certain forces that work and certain parts of the personality that use
them. In the ordinary consciousness, these part-personalities are veiled and the
forces limited by the external mind, but when one gets behind the veil that
limitation disappears, the action of the forces enlarges and works out
automatically what has to be done.
But then these forces are each intent on its own work
and do not care for anything else e.g., here they disregard the need of the
body for rest and sleep, which is bad. The central consciousness must interfere
and say, no, this is the time for sleep, not for these activities, keep them
for their proper place and time.
*
3392
It is a want of sleep itself that brings the symptoms
of uneasiness. The action of
sadhana cannot of itself bring this kind of reaction, it is only if the body
gets strained by want of sleep, insufficient food, overwork or nervous
excitement that there are these things. It is probably because the nerves are
strained in the day time and you do not relax into ease that it is difficult to
sleep.
*
3393
It is restlessness in you which prevents you from
keeping sleep inwardly or outwardly. To sleep well the vital and physical and
mind also must learn how to relax themselves and be quiet.
*
3394
Take care to rest enough. You must guard against
fatigue as it may bring relaxation and
tamas. To rest well is not
tamas, as some people suppose; it can be done in the right consciousness to
maintain the bodily energy like the
śavāsana of the strenuous
Hathayogin.
*
3395
Obviously it [reading a novel before going to bed]
threw you into a
tamasic consciousness and consequently the sleep was
heavy in a gross subconsciousness and the fatigue was the result.
*
3396
Sleep, because of its subconscient basis, usually
brings a falling down to a lower level, unless it is a conscious sleep; to make
it more and more conscious is the one permanent remedy: but also until that is
done, one should always react against this sinking tendency when one wakes and
not allow the effect of dull nights to accumulate. But these things need always
a settled endeavour and discipline and must take time, sometimes a long time. It
will not do to refrain from the effort because immediate results do not appear.
*
3397
It is not a right method to try to keep awake at night;
the suppression of the needed sleep makes the body
tamasic and unfit for the necessary concentration during the waking hours.
The right way is to transform the sleep and not suppress it, and especially to
learn how to become more and more conscious in sleep itself. If that is done,
sleep changes into an inner mode of consciousness in which the
sadhana can continue as much as in the waking state, and at the same time
one is able to enter into other planes of consciousness than the physical and
command an immense range of informative and utilisable experience.
*
3398
What he is having now are the true spiritual and
psychic experiences not those of the vital plane which most have at the
beginning. The experiences of the vital plane (in which there is much
imagination and fantasy) are useful for opening up the consciousness; but it is
when they are replaced by the spiritual and psychic consciousness that there is
the beginning of the true progress.
The difficulty of keeping the consciousness at night
happens to most it is because the night is the time of sleep and relaxation
and the subconscient comes up. The true consciousness comes at first in the
waking state or in meditation, it takes possession of the mental, the vital, the
conscious physical, but the subconscious vital and physical remain obscure and
this obscurity comes up when there is sleep or an inert relaxation. When the
subconscient is enlightened and penetrated by the true consciousness this
disparity disappears.
The Pishachic woman that tried to enter is the false
vital impure
Shakti and the voice that spoke was that of his psychic being. If he keeps
his psychic being awake and in front, it will always protect him against these
dark forces as it did this time.
*
3399
You must not try to avoid sleep at night if you
persist in doing that, the bad results may not appear immediately, but the body
will get strained and there will be a breakdown which may destroy what you have
gained in your
sadhana.
If you want to remain conscious at night, train
yourself to make your sleep conscious not to eliminate sleep altogether, but
to transform it.
*
3400
Sleep cannot be replaced, but it can be changed; for
you can become conscious in sleep. If you are thus conscious, then the night can
be utilised for a higher working provided the body gets its due rest; for the
object of sleep is the body's rest and the renewal of the vital-physical force.
It is a mistake to deny to the body food and sleep, as some from an ascetic idea
or impulse want to do that only wears out the physical support and although
either the yogic or the vital energy can long keep at work an overstrained or
declining physical system, a time comes when this drawing is no longer so easy
nor perhaps possible. The body should be given what it needs for its own
efficient working. Moderate but sufficient food (without greed or desire),
sufficient sleep, but not of the heavy
tamasic kind, this should be the rule.
*
3401
There is no reason at all why intensity of
sadhana should bring insufficient sleep.
*
3402
Sadhana can go on in the dream or sleep state as well as in the waking.
*
3403
All dream or sleep consciousness cannot be converted at
once into conscious
sadhana. That has to be done progressively. But your power of conscious
samadhi must increase before this can be done.
*
3404
The sleep consciousness can be effectively dealt with
only when the waking mind has made a certain amount of progress.
*
3405
It is usually only if there is much activity of
sadhana in the day that it extends also into the sleep-state.
*
3406
Once one is in full
sadhana, sleep becomes as much a part of it as waking.
*
3407
That is all right. It shows that the
sadhana is becoming continuous and that you are being conscious and using a
conscious will in sleep as well as in waking. This is a very important stage
forward in the
sadhana.
*
3408
At night when one sinks into the subconscient after
being in a good state of consciousness we find that state gone and we have to
labour to get it back again. On the other hand, if the sleep is
of the better kind one may wake up in a good condition. Of course, it is better
to be conscious in sleep, if one can.
When I get up in the morning I find that the previous
day's sadhana
is forgotten. What should be done to keep up the continuity?
The gap made by the night and waking with the ordinary
consciousness is the case with everybody almost (of course, the ordinary
consciousness differs according to the progress); but it is no use wanting to be
conscious in sleep; you have to get the habit of getting back the thread of the
progress as soon as may be and for that there must be some concentration after
rising.
You need not meditate at once [after waking in the
morning] but for a few moments take a concentrated attitude calling the
Mother's presence for the day.
At night, you have to pass into sleep in the
concentration you must be able to concentrate with the eyes closed, lying down
and the concentration must deepen into sleep that is to say, sleep must become
a concentrated going inside away from the outer waking state. If you find it
necessary to sit for a time you may do so, but afterwards lie down, keeping the
concentration till this happens.
I have read in the Mother's Conversations that if one
prays to her before going to bed to be conscious in sleep, it helps.
You have to start by concentrating before your sleep,
always with a specific will or aspiration. The will or aspiration may take time
to reach the subconscient, but if it is sincere, strong and steady, it does
reach after a time so that an automatic consciousness and will are established
in the sleep itself which will do what is necessary.
*
3411
It was not half sleep or quarter sleep or even
one-sixteenth sleep that you had; it was a going inside of the consciousness,
which in that state remains conscious but shut to outer things and open only to
inner experience. You must distinguish clearly between these two quite different
conditions, one is
nidrā, the other, the
beginning at least of
samādhi (not
nirvikalpa, of course!). This drawing inside is necessary because the
active mind of the human being is at first too much turned to outward things; it
has to go inside altogether in order to live in the inner being (inner mind,
inner vital, inner physical, psychic). But with training one can arrive at a
point when one remains outwardly conscious and yet lives in the inner being and
has at will the indrawn or the outpoured condition; you can then have the same
dense immobility and the same inpouring of a greater and purer consciousness in
the waking state as in that which you erroneously call sleep.
*
3412
You are more conscious in your sleep than in your
waking condition. This is because of the physical consciousness which is not yet
sufficiently open; it is only just beginning to open. In your sleep the inner
being is active and the psychic there can influence more actively the mind and
vital. When the physical consciousness is spiritually awake, you will no longer
feel the trouble and obstruction you now have and will be as open in the waking
consciousness as in sleep.
This is the right attitude to have faith and not mind
the difficulties. Difficulties and serious ones there cannot fail to be in
the path of yoga, because it is not easy to change all at once the ignorant
human consciousness and make it a spiritual consciousness open to the Divine.
But with faith one need not mind the difficulties; the Divine Force is there and
will overcome them.
*
3413
The sleep you describe in which there is a luminous
silence or else the sleep in which there is
Ananda in the cells, these are obviously the best states. The other hours,
those of which you are unconscious, may be spells of a deep slumber in which you
have got out of the physical into the mental, vital or other planes. You say you
were unconscious, but it may simply be that you do not remember what happened;
for in coming back there is a sort of turning over of the consciousness, a
transition or reversal,
in which everything experienced in sleep except perhaps the last happening of
all or else one that was very impressive, recedes from the physical
consciousness and all becomes as if a blank. There is another blank state, a
state of inertia, not only blank, but heavy and unremembering; but that is when
one goes deeply and crassly into the subconscient; this subterranean plunge is
very undesirable, obscuring, lowering, often fatiguing rather than restful, the
reverse of the luminous silence.
*
3414
In sleep one very commonly passes from consciousness to
deeper consciousness in a long succession until one reaches the psychic and
rests there or else from higher to higher consciousness until one reaches rest
in some silence and peace. The few minutes one passes in this rest are the real
sleep which restores, if one does not get it, there is only a half rest. It is
when you come near to either of these domains of rest that you begin to see
these higher kinds of dreams.
*
3415
According to a recent medical theory one passes in
sleep through many phases until one arrives at a state in which there is
absolute rest and silence it lasts only for ten minutes, the rest of the time
is taken up by travelling to that and travelling back again to the waking state.
I suppose the ten minutes sleep can be called
suṣupti in the
Brahman or
Brahmaloka, the rest is svapna
or passage through other worlds (planes or states of conscious existence). It is
these ten minutes that restore the energies of the being, and without it sleep
is not refreshing.
According to the Mother's experience and knowledge one
passes from waking through a succession of states of sleep consciousness which
are in fact an entry and passage into so many worlds and arrives at a pure
Sachchidananda state of complete rest, light and silence, afterwards one
retraces one's way till one reaches the waking physical state. It is this
Sachchidananda period that gives sleep all its restorative value. These two
accounts, the scientific and the occult-spiritual, are practically identical
with each other. But the former is only a recent discovery of what the
occult-spiritual knowledge knew long ago.
People's ideas of sound sleep are absolutely erroneous.
What they call sound sleep is merely a plunge of the outer consciousness into a
complete subconscience. They call that a dreamless sleep; but it is only a state
in which the surface sleep consciousness which is a subtle prolongation of the
outer still left active in sleep itself is unable to record the dreams and
transmit them to the physical mind. As a matter of fact the whole sleep is full
of dreams. It is only during the brief time in which one is in the
Brahmaloka that the dreams cease.
*
3416
A long unbroken sleep is necessary because there are
just ten minutes of the whole into which one enters into a true rest a sort of
Sachchidananda immobility of consciousness and that it is which really
restores the system. The rest of the time is spent first in travelling through
various states of consciousness towards that and then coming out of it back
towards the waking state. This fact of the ten minutes true rest has been noted
by medical men, but of course they know nothing about
Sachchidananda!
All sleep is full of dreams. Why should night or day
make any difference?
*
3418
The consciousness in the night almost always descends
below the level of what one has gained by
sadhana in the waking consciousness, unless there are special experiences of
an uplifting character in the time of sleep or unless the yogic consciousness
acquired is so strong in the physical itself as to counteract the pull of the
subconscient inertia. In ordinary sleep the consciousness in the body
is that of the subconscient physical, which is a diminished consciousness, not
awake and alive like the rest of the being. The rest of the being stands back
and part of its consciousness goes out into other planes and regions and has
experiences which are recorded in dreams such as that you have related. You say
you go to very bad places and have experiences like the one you narrate; but
that is not a sign, necessarily, of anything wrong in you. It merely means that
you go into the vital world, as everybody does, and the vital world is full of
such places and such experiences. What you have to do is not so much to avoid at
all going there, for it cannot be avoided altogether, but to go with full
protection until you get mastery in these regions of supraphysical Nature. That
is one reason why you should remember the Mother and open to the Force before
sleeping; for the more you get that habit and do it successfully, the more the
protection will be with you.
*
3419
It is the waking mind which thinks and wills and
controls more or less the life in the waking state. In the sleep that mind is
not there and there is no control. It is not the thinking mind that sees dreams
etc. and is conscious in a rather incoherent way in sleep. It is usually what is
called the subconscient that comes up then. If the waking mind were active in
the body, one would not be able to sleep.
*
3420
You are mixing up different things altogether that is
why you cannot understand. I was simply explaining the difference between the
ordinary waking consciousness and the ordinary sleep consciousness, as they work
in men whether
sadhaks or not
sadhaks and it has nothing to do with the true self or psychic being.
Sleep and waking are determined not by the true self or psychic being, but by
the mind's waking condition or activity or its cessation when it ceases for a
time, then it is the subconscious that is there on the surface and there is
sleep.
That is a different matter it is in the yogic
consciousness
that one feels the seat of the subconscient below the feet, but the influence of
the subconscious is not confined there it is spread in the body. In the waking
state it is overpowered by the conscious thinking mind and vital and conscious
physical mind, but in the sleep state it comes on the surface.
*
3421
It is the subconscient that is active in the ordinary
dreams. But in the dreams in which one goes out into other planes of
consciousness, mental, vital, subtle physical, it is part of the inner being,
inner mental or vital or physical that is usually active.
*
3422
These dreams are not all mere dreams, all have not a
casual, incoherent or subconscious building. Many are records or transcripts of
experiences on the vital plane into which one enters in sleep, some are scenes
or events of the subtle physical plane. There one often undergoes happenings or
carries on actions that resemble those of the physical life with the same
surroundings and the same people, though usually there is in arrangement and
feature some or a considerable difference. But it may also be a contact with
other surroundings and with other people, not known in the physical life or not
belonging at all to the physical world.
In the waking state you are conscious only of a certain
limited field and action of your nature. In sleep you can become vividly aware
of things beyond this field a larger mental or vital nature behind the waking
state or else a subtle physical or a subconscient nature which contains much
that is there in you but not distinguishably active in the waking state. All
these obscure tracts have to be cleared or else there can be no change of
Prakriti. You should not allow yourself to be disturbed by the press of
vital or subconscient dreams for these two make up the larger part of
dream-experience but aspire to get rid of these things and of the activities
they indicate, to be conscious and reject all but the divine Truth; the more you
get that Truth
and cling to it in the waking state, rejecting all else, the more all this
inferior dream-stuff will get clear.
*
3423
It is the condition of your consciousness I spoke of
the more conscious you become, the more you will be able to have dreams worth
having.
*
3424
Unless they are really significant dreams it [to study
them] is a waste of time.
*
3425
You seem to be attaching too much importance to dreams.
Keep your waking mind and vital free you can deal afterwards with the dreams
which will then be only memories from the subconscient.
*
3426
All dreams of this kind are very obviously formations
such as one often meets on the vital, more rarely on the mental plane. Sometimes
they are the formations of your own mind or vital; sometimes they are the
formations of other minds with an exact or modified transcription in yours;
sometimes formations come that are made by the non-human forces or beings of
these other planes. These things are not true and need not become true in the
physical world, but they may still have effects on the physical if they are
framed with that purpose or that tendency and, if they are allowed, they may
realise their events or their meaning for they are most often symbolical or
schematic in the inner or the outer life. The proper course with them is
simply to observe and understand and, if they are from a hostile source, reject
or destroy them.
There are other dreams that have not the same character
but are a representation or transcription of things that actually happen on
other planes, in other worlds under other conditions than ours. There are,
again, some dreams that are purely symbolic
and some that indicate existing movements and propensities in us, whether
familiar or undetected by the waking mind, or exploit old memories or else raise
up things either passively stored or still active in the subconscient, a mass of
various stuff which has to be changed or got rid of as one rises into a higher
consciousness. If one learns how to interpret, one can get from dreams much
knowledge of the secrets of our nature and of other-nature.
*
3427
These figures and intimations in dream may be due to
three different causes
1. Beings whom you meet in the supraphysical world and
who interest themselves in you.
2. Forces of Nature, mind nature or vital nature, that
take these human appearances and in a symbolic dream convey to you some
formation of the universal Mind or Life. These messages can take the form of
intimations or warnings of what is going to happen. The woman must have been
such a Force of Nature, for her child and box are evidently symbolic the child
of some creation or formation of hers which she wanted you to accept and keep in
your consciousness, the box of some habitual movements which this force also
wanted you to harbour. The offer to take care of you was only a way of saying
that it wanted to control you. To dismiss all that was the right thing to do.
3. Constructions of your own mind in the form of dreams
so as to convey to you intimations it had received or perceptions of some force
of nature which, as in the last dream, it wanted the inner being to reject.
*
3428
This is an instance of a dream of exact physical
prevision. The power to have such dreams is comparatively rare, for ordinarily
such previsions come in inner vision but not in sleep. In dreams vital or mental
formations often take shape which sometimes fulfil themselves in essence, but
not with this accuracy of detail.
It is only a particular class of dreams that do that
[indicate the exact past and the future]. Most coherent dreams are either
symbolic or indicate things that take place in the mental or vital planes rather
than on the physical.
This indicates a power of conscious thought-formation.
Thoughts have an effective power usually by creating an atmosphere or
tendencies thus when one is ill, those around should not have thoughts of
gloomy foreboding, grief or fear, for that works against cure. But the capacity
of conscious thought-formation is a special power and uncommon. It can be
acquired or come of itself by
sadhana.
*
3429
Dreams of this kind arise from the subconscient. It is
one of the most embarrassing elements of yogic experience to find how
obstinately the subconscient retains what has been settled and done with in the
upper layers of the consciousness. But just for that reason these dreams are
often a useful indication as they enable us to pursue things to their obscure
roots in this underworld and excise them. No, it does not indicate that you are
taking in any part of your consciousness your present pursuit of yoga as a
stopgap, but merely that old vital tendencies and activities are still there in
that mysterious and obscure subconscient limbo and that their ghosts can rise
twittering to the surface when the conscious will is in abeyance. If the dream
was trivial, it would seem to show that this ghost was not a strong demon like
the militant Norwegian saga revenants but a phantom from an unsubstantial
Hades.
*
3430
It often happens that when something is thrown out of
the waking consciousness it still occurs in dream. This recurrence is of two
kinds. One is when the thing is gone, but the memory and impression of it
remains in the subconscient and comes up in dream form in sleep. These
subconscient dream-recurrences are of no importance; they are shadows rather
than realities. The other is when dreams come in the vital to test or to show
how far in some part of the inner being the old movement remains or is
conquered. For in sleep the control of the waking consciousness
and will is not there. If then even in spite of that one is conscious in sleep
and either does not feel the old movement when the circumstances that formerly
caused it are repeated in dream or else soon conquers and throws it out, then it
must be understood that there too the victory is won. Your dream which seems to
have corresponded with realities was a true experience of this kind; the old
movement did come from habit, but at once you became conscious and rejected it.
This is an encouraging sign and promises complete removal in a very short time.
*
3431
Those dreams which are formed from subconscient
impressions arranged at haphazard (subconscient mind, vital or physical) either
have no significance or some meaning which is difficult to find and not very
much worth knowing even if it is found. Other dreams are either simply
happenings of the mental, vital or subtle physical worlds or else belong to the
wider mental, vital or subtle physical planes and have a meaning which the
figures of the dream are trying to communicate.
*
3432
When one is in the physical consciousness, then the
sleep is apt to be of the subconscious kind, often heavy and unrefreshing, the
dreams also of the subconscient kind, incoherent and meaningless or if there is
a meaning the dream symbols are so confused and obscure that it is not possible
to follow it. It is by bringing the Mother's Light into the subconscient that
this can be dispelled and the sleep becomes restful or luminous and conscious.
*
3433
These experiences are normal when the inner
consciousness is growing and becoming more and more the natural seat of the
being it is the spontaneous intuitive knowledge of this inner consciousness
which is becoming prominent in place of the ordinary reliance of the external
mind on sense data and external happenings. It is indeed the being as a whole
that becomes conscious the substance of consciousness that becomes aware of
things, not an outer instrumental part.
In the sleep part of the consciousness goes out to
other planes of being and sees and experiences things there. It is quite
possible for the witness consciousness to follow these happenings which usually
transmit themselves in a coherent transcription to the sleeping part of the
consciousness the latter receives them and they appear as clear significant
dreams as opposed to the incoherent dreams of the subconscient. Or else the
witness consciousness may feel itself there watching the happenings as well as
here. This will probably develop after a while.
*
3434
The physical mind (or else the subconscient) almost
always interferes in the dream and gives its own version. It is only when there
is a clear experience on the mental or vital plane that it does not try to
interfere.
*
3435
They are dreams of the mental and higher vital planes
in which things happen with another rhythm than here and freer forces, but some
of them are formative of things and events here not that they are fulfilled
exactly like prophecies but they create forces for fulfilment.
*
3436
There is no solid connection [between the waking and
the dream states], but there can be a subtle one. Events of the waking state
often influence the dream world, provided they have a sufficient repercussion on
the mind or the vital. Formations and activities of the dream planes can project
something of themselves or of their influence into the waking physical state,
though they seldom reproduce themselves with any exactness there. It is only if
the dream consciousness is very highly developed that one can usually see things
there that are afterwards
confirmed by thoughts, speech or actions of people or events in the physical
world.
*
3437
These are dreams of the vital plane in which the vital
plane takes up the spiritual experience and tries to turn it into forms of ego
with a suggestion afterwards of loss of power and of consciousness and a fall.
You should attach no importance to these dreams except as an indication of
nature in the sleeping state.
*
3438
They simply mean that when they come back, they are not
conscious of having dreamed. In the sleep the consciousness goes into other
planes and has experiences there and when these are translated perfectly or
imperfectly by the physical mind, they are called dreams. All the time of sleep
such dreams take place, but sometimes one remembers and at other times does not
at all remember. Sometimes also one goes low down into the subconscient and the
dreams are there, but so deep down that when one comes out there is not even the
consciousness that one had dreamed.
*
3439
The alternation of quiet and much speaking is natural
when the physical being is being worked upon from within. When the sleep is more
awake, so to say, then one has dreams of all kinds; when there is no such
awareness of dreams, it is because the sleep of the body is more deep, the
dreams are there but the body consciousness does not note them or remember that
it had them.
*
3440
It depends on the connection between the two states of
consciousness at the time of waking. Usually there is a turn over of the
consciousness in which the dream-state disappears more or less abruptly,
effacing the fugitive impression made by the dream events (or rather their
transcription) on the physical
sheath. If the waking is more composed (less abrupt) or, if the impression is
very strong, then the memory remains at least of the last dream. In the last
case one may remember the dream for a long time, but usually after getting up
the dream memories fade away. Those who want to remember their dreams sometimes
make a practice of lying quiet and tracing backwards, recovering the dreams one
by one. When the dream-state is very light, one can remember more dreams than
when it is heavy.
*
3441
The subconscient [during sleep] remains in the body.
The being really goes out into different planes of consciousness, but its
experiences are not kept in the memory, because the recording consciousness is
too submerged to carry the record to the waking mind.
*
3442
Yes, certainly, dream experiences can have a great
value in them and convey truths that are not so easy to get in the waking state.
It often happens like that. There is a change or
reversal of the consciousness that takes place and the dream consciousness in
disappearing takes away its scenes and experiences with it. This can sometimes
be avoided by not coming out abruptly into the waking state or getting up
quickly, but remaining quiet for a time to see if the memory remains or comes
back. Otherwise the physical memory has to be taught to remember.
*
3443
Most people move most in the vital in sleep because it
is the nearest to the physical and easiest to remain. One does enter the higher
planes but either the transit there is brief or one does not remember. For in
returning to the waking consciousness it is again through the lower vital and
subtle physical that one passes and as these are the last dreams they are more
easily remembered. The other dreams are remembered only if (1) they are strongly
impressed on the recording consciousness, (2) one
wakes immediately after one of them, (3) one has learned to be conscious in
sleep, i.e. follows consciously the passage from plane to plane. Some train
themselves to remember by remaining without moving when they wake and following
back the thread of the dreams.
*
3444
The expression was of the psychic plane and the music
was of that domain. Very often coming out of a conscious sleep like that the
inner consciousness (which heard the music) lasts for a few seconds even after
waking, before it goes back and is entirely covered by the waking mind. In that
case what was heard or seen in sleep would continue for those few seconds after
waking.
*
3445
In dreams on the vital plane there is always a
deviation from the norm of the physical fact sometimes this is because of the
free play in the vital, but at others it is only a fantasy of formation either
in the vital itself or in the subconscient mind which transcribes the incidents
of the dream and sometimes alters them by contributions of its own.
*
3446
The people of dream are very often different from the
people of actuality. Sometimes it is the real man who comes on another plane
sometimes it is a thought, force etc. that put on his appearance by some trick
of association or other reason.
*
3447
That is unlike many others a symbol dream on the vital
plane. But it is difficult to interpret these vital symbolic dreams unless they
offer their own clue they are a sort of hieroglyph in their forms. Once one
gets the clue some of them can be very significant others of course are rather
trivial.
*
3448
It is a very small number of dreams that can be so explained [that they arise by
external stimuli] and in many cases the explanation is quite arbitrary or cannot
be proved. A much larger number of dreams arise from subconscient impressions of
the past without any stimulus from outside. These are the dreams from the
subconscient which are the bulk of those remembered by people who live in the
external mind mostly. There are also the dreams that are renderings of vital
movements and tendencies habitual to the nature, personal formations of the
vital plane. But when one begins to live within then the dreams are often
transcriptions of one's experiences on the vital plane and beyond that there is
a large field of symbolic and other dreams which have nothing to do with memory.
Of course it has been proved that a very long and circumstantial dream can
happen in a second or two, so that objection to Bergson's statement does not
stand. But there are also prophetic dreams and many others. Memory holds
together the experiences but it is absurd to identify consciousness (even in the
restricted European idea of consciousness) with memory. This theory of memory is
part of Bergson's fundamental idea that Time is everything. As for
spirituelle in Europe mostly no distinction is made between the
spiritual and the mental or vital.
A great many people have these dreams. It is the vital
being that goes out in sleep and moves about in the vital worlds and has this
sense of floating in the air in its own (vital) body. The waves of sea having
the colour of lightning must have been the atmosphere of some vital province. I
have known of some
sadhaks, when they go at first out of the body in a more conscious way,
thinking they have actually levitated, the vividness of the movement is so
intense, but it is simply the vital body going out.
*
3450
The dreams are experiences on the vital plane, actual
contacts with myself and the Mother in your inner being, not symbolic
though they may have symbolic elements, but expressing relations, influences or
mutual workings of our consciousness with yours. The second dream has symbolic
elements. The ladder is of course a symbol of an ascent from one stage to
another. The snake indicates an energy, sometimes a good one, more often a bad
one (vital or hostile). It may be that the energy was quiescent and therefore
not alarming, but by touching it to see how it was you awoke it and you found it
was something not safe to handle. There is no clear indication what this energy
was. These dream-experiences do not depend on the waking thoughts as do ordinary
subconscient dreams which are dreams only and not experiences. They have a life,
a structure, an arrangement and forms and meanings of their own; but they are
often connected with the inner condition and experiences or movements of the
sadhana. It is not clear whether the flower-incident was symbolic or only
something that happened on the inner plane. It might have been possible to say
if it had been indicated what flower it actually was that you had given.
These bad conditions are a lapse (often due to a very
slight cause) from the inner poise to the outer consciousness. When they happen
do not get affected, but remain quiet, call the Mother and get back inward.
*
3451
The dreams you describe are very clearly symbolic
dreams on the vital plane. These dreams may symbolise anything, forces at play,
the underlying structure and tissue of things done or experienced, actual or
potential happenings, real or suggested movements or changes in the inner or
outer nature.
The timidity of which the apprehension in the dream was
an indication, was probably not anything in the conscious mind or higher vital,
but something subconscient in the lower vital nature. This part always feels
itself small and insignificant and has very easily a fear of being submerged by
the greater consciousness a fear which in some may amount at the first contact
to something like a panic, alarm or terror.
*
3452
These are experiences of the vital plane; they have a meaning if one knows how
to interpret them. This one indicates the possibility of strong attacks on the
vital plane, but at the same time promises protection. These are formations of
the vital plane, sometimes things that try to happen but not necessarily
effective. One can observe and understand, but not allow them to influence the
mind; for often adverse forces try to influence the mind by suggestion through
these dream experiences.
*
3453
I said this dream was an actual happening on the vital
plane, not a formation. If somebody attacks you in the street, that is not a
formation. But if somebody hypnotises you and suggests that you are ill that
suggestion is a formation put in by the hypnotiser.
*
3454
These are dreams of the vital plane they have
probably some reference to something going on in your vital, but these dreams
cannot be precisely interpreted unless there is either a clue that is clear on
the surface or else you yourself can relate it to something in your experience
of which you are aware. The images of the ascent and the coming down of water
(consciousness or some other gift from above) are frequent and the general
meaning is always the same but the precise significance here is not clear.
*
3455
It is a dream of the vital plane. In these dreams the
figures of the physical life take another form and meaning and the consciousness
that lives and acts among them is not the outer physical consciousness but some
inner vital part of the being. The insurrection of the French soldiers is a
figure of some disturbance on the vital plane which wants to happen and affect
the inner life. The import of the dream is the readiness of the vital inner
consciousness to put its reliance on the Mother and
take refuge in her against all possible disturbances or perils of the inner
life.
*
3456
Yes, your feeling about the protection is perfectly
true.
The dream about X and going to the Mother was an
experience of something that took place on the vital plane. Things happen there
that have some connection with the nature and life here, but they happen
differently because there it is not the physical beings that meet, but the vital
beings of people. One can gather what is the nature of one's own inner vital
being which is often very different from the physical personality that acts in
front in the body. By the acting of the consciousness in these dreams the inner
parts of the being begin to be more active and have more influence on the outer
nature. Your inner vital being seems from the dream experiences that you have
related to be very strong, faithful, clear-minded, resolute, able to deal with
the hostile forces and their activities in the right way and do the right thing.
The sensation of going somewhere means that part of the
consciousness is going into some other plane than the physical. The men you saw
and also the vision that came afterwards belonged to these supraphysical worlds.
The vision seems to be symbolic of something from above, but of what is not
quite clear from the details. Gold is the colour of the Truth that comes from
above.
*
3457
The physical is not the only world; there are others
that we become aware of through dream records, through the subtle senses,
through influences and contacts, through imagination, intuition and vision.
There are worlds of a larger subtler life than ours, vital worlds; worlds in
which Mind builds its own forms and figures, mental worlds; psychic worlds which
are the soul's home; others above with which we have little contact. In each of
us there is a mental plane of consciousness, a psychic, a vital, a subtle
physical as well as the gross physical and material plane. The same planes are
repeated in the consciousness of
general Nature. It is when we enter or contact these other planes that we come
into connection with the worlds above the physical. In sleep we leave the
physical body, only a subconscient residue remaining, and enter all planes and
all sorts of worlds. In each we see scenes, meet beings, share in happenings,
come across formations, influences, suggestions which belong to these planes.
Even when we are awake, part of us moves in these planes, but their activity
goes on behind the veil; our waking minds are not aware of it. Dreams are often
only incoherent constructions of our subconscient, but others are records (often
much mixed and distorted) or transcripts of experiences in these supraphysical
planes. When we do
sadhana, this kind of dream becomes very common; then subconscious dreams
cease to predominate.
The forces and beings of the vital world have a great
influence on human beings. The vital world is on one side a world of beauty,
the poet, artist, musician are in close contact with it; it is also a world of
powers and passions, lusts and desires, our own lusts and desires, and
passions and ambitions can put us into connection with the vital worlds and
their forces and beings. It is again a world of things dark, dangerous and
horrible. Nightmares like X's are contacts with this side of the vital plane.
Its influences are also the source of much in men that is demoniac, dirty, cruel
and base.
This experience of X is a contact with something on the
wrong side of the vital plane. Her visions of gods, goddesses, etc., are vital
world experiences on the other side. This one is an attempt of some vital force
to get some kind of control on her acting on her through her fear. If she were
not afraid, it could not invade her. If she suffers in her waking hours from
desires or despondencies and depressions, that also would help to make her enter
these worlds in sleep or have a connection with them. Her experiences as you
reported them showed a very great power of entry into the vital plane on the
good side these dream experiences are the other side. As they are dreams, they
are not so dangerous as a similar experience in meditation would be, but all the
same they are very undesirable.
If such an invasion is attempted, the one thing to do
is to fight it out as she did and at the same time to call the Mother.
The rule should be to call the Mother before sleeping, to concentrate on her and
try to feel the Mother's protection around her and go with that into sleep. In
the dream itself a habit of calling the Mother when in difficulty or peril
should be formed; many
sadhaks do it. Not to allow the invasion, any invasion of any power or
being, whether in dream, meditation or otherwise no force except the Divine
Force, means to reject it, never to give assent, whether through attention or
through weakness. To cut connection can be done by will within, a will of
rejection, a concentration on higher things than the things of the vital plane;
also by rejection of vital desires or despondencies and depressions, if she has
them. Let her aspire most for the higher spiritual experiences, the psychic
opening, calm, peace, purity, the opening to the higher light, strength, bliss,
knowledge.
One thing, she should not lead too sequestered a life;
some opening on the physical world is needed, also some normal mental activities
of a healthy character.
*
3458
These are dreams sent from the vital world. There are
three things she must develop with regard to them:
(1) to get the habit of calling the Mother at once in
the dream itself;
(2) not to fear if one does not fear, these other
world forces become helpless;
(3) to put no belief in the reality of such formations
and regard them only as suggestions put into form, just as one gets a frightful
imagination of this or that happening but the reason knows it to be a mere work
of imagination and is not moved by it.
*
3459
Your experience of the peace in the body was a very
good one. As for the bad dream, it was a hostile formation from the vital world
a suggestion in a dream form intended to upset you. These things should be
dismissed you should say in yourself It is false no such thing can happen
and throw it away as
you would a wrong suggestion in the waking state.
*
3460
These things that come to frighten you are merely
impressions thrown on you by small vital forces which want to prevent you (by
making you nervous) pushing on the
sadhana. They can really do nothing to you, only you must reject all fear.
Keep always this thought when these things come The Mother's protection is with
me, nothing bad can happen, for when there is the psychic opening and one
puts one's faith in the Mother, that is sufficient to ward these things off.
Many sadhaks
learn, when they have alarming dreams, to call the Mother's name in the dream
itself and then the things that menace them become helpless or cease. You must
therefore refuse to be intimidated and reject these impressions with contempt.
If there is anything frightening, call down the Mother's protection.
The heat you felt was probably due to some difficulty
in the force coming down below the centre between the eyes where it has been
working up till now. When such sensations or the unease you once felt or similar
things come, you must not be alarmed, but remain quiet and let the difficulty
pass.
What you had before that, the moonlight in the forehead
was this working on the centre there between the eyebrows, the centre of the
inner mind, will and vision. The moonlight you saw is the light of spirituality
and it was this that was entering into your mind through the centre, with the
effect of the widening in the heart like a sky filled with moonlight. Afterwards
came some endeavour to prepare the lower part of the mind whose centre is in the
throat and join it with the inner mind and make it open; but there was some
difficulty, as is very usually the case, which caused the heat. It was probably
the fire of
tapas,
Agni, trying to open the way to this centre.
The experience of being taken up into the sky is a very
common one and it means an ascent of the consciousness into a higher world of
light and peace.
The idea that you must go more and more within and turn
wholly to the Mother is quite right. It is when there is no
attachment to outward things for their own sake and all is only for the Mother
and the life through the inner psychic being is centred in her that the best
condition is created for the spiritual realisation.
*
3461
The dream was of a kind one often has in the vital
plane in which one gets into inextricable difficulties till suddenly one finds
the way out. Gujerat in the dream was not Gujerat, but only a symbol of one part
of the vital world which is opposed to the spiritual life and full of vital
powers that come in the way either by fraud or by force. These dreams are
indications of certain parts of vital nature (not one's own, but the general
vital Nature) which stand in the way of spiritual fulfilment. When one goes
there and masters them, then one is free from any intervention of these parts of
Nature in the
sadhana.
*
3462
These dreams are quite symbolical of the vital forces
that come and attack you. If you face them with courage they are reduced to
helplessness. I don't think that it is at all your father and brother that you
meet although something of their hostile feelings may be taken advantage of by
those forces to take their figures also they may do it in order to create
sympathy in you and prevent you from acting against them. But apart from that
the figures of the physical mother and father and relatives are very often
symbolical of the physical or the hereditary nature or generally of the ordinary
nature in which we are born.
*
3463
In these dreams the parents or relatives mean the
ordinary forces of the physical consciousness (the old nature).
*
3464
These dreams are of the vital plane. Those about going
home
come from a part of the vital which still keeps the memory of the past relations
and goes there during the sleep. The dreams about the Mother record meetings
with her on the vital plane. For the first you should throw them away when you
awake and not let your vital keep their impress. The experiences you had there
(of the Mother coming in the heart and telling you) were psychic in character,
not of the vital dream kind.
The difficulty you have in
sadhana may come from the vital or physical mind becoming active. That often
happens after the first experiences of calm and silence. One has to detach
oneself from these activities in meditation as a witness and call down the
original calm into these parts also. But this may take time. If one can in
meditation sufficiently isolate oneself from the surroundings and go inside, the
quietude comes more quickly.
*
3465
When you practise yoga, the consciousness opens and you
become aware especially in sleep of things, scenes, beings, happenings of
other (not physical) worlds and yourself in sleep go there and act there. Very
often these things have an importance for the
sadhana. So you need not regret seeing all this when you sleep or meditate.
But in no case should you fear. The fact that you were
able to destroy the beings that fought with you (these were beings of a hostile
vital world) is very good, for it shows that in your vital nature somewhere
there is strength and courage. Moreover, using the Mother's name and having her
protection, you should fear nothing.
*
3466
The running away [in dream] is a symbol of the inertia
in part of the being which allows the forces to invade, drawing back from them
and losing ground instead of facing and destroying them.
*
3467
It is evident that X's experience was only what is
called a
nightmare an attack in sleep from some force of the vital world, to which he
probably opened himself in some way, it may be by answering to the man from the
street who carried the worst vital atmosphere around him. The figure of the
woman was only a form given by his subconscient mind to this force. These forces
are around everywhere, not only in one particular room or house, and if one
opens the door to them, they come in wherever you are. It would have no
importance but for the nervous reaction of irrational terror indulged in by X.
One who wants to do
sadhana has no business to indulge in such panics; it is a weakness
incompatible with the demands of the yoga and, if one cannot throw it aside, it
is safer not to try the yoga.
*
3468
The depression coming on you in sleep must have been
due to one of two causes. It might have been the trace left by an unpleasant
experience in some disagreeable quarter of the vital worlds, and there are
places in plenty of that kind there. It can hardly have been an attack, for that
would surely have left a more distinct impression of something having happened,
even if there was no actual memory of it; but merely to enter into certain
places or meet their inhabitants or enter into contact with their atmosphere can
have, unless one is a born fighter and takes an aggressive pleasure in facing
and conquering these ordeals, a depressing and exhausting effect. If that is the
cause, then it is a question of either avoiding these places, which can be done
by an effort of will, once one knows that it is this which happens, or putting
around you a special protection against the touch of that atmosphere. The other
possible cause is a plunge into a too obscure and subconscient sleep that has
sometimes the effect you describe. In any case, do not allow yourself to be
discouraged when these things happen; they are common phenomena one cannot fail
to meet with as soon as one begins to penetrate behind the veil and touch the
occult causes of the psychological happenings within us. One has to learn the
causes, note and face the difficulty and always react never accept the
depression thrown on one, but react as you did the first time.
If there are always forces around which are concerned to depress and discourage,
there are always forces above and around us which we can draw upon, draw into
ourselves to restore, to fill up again with strength and faith and joy and the
power that perseveres and conquers. It is really a habit that one has to get of
opening to these helpful forces and either passively receiving them or actively
drawing upon them for one can do either. It is easier if you have the
conception of them above and around you and the faith and the will to receive
them for that brings the experience and concrete sense of them and the
capacity to receive at need or at will. It is a question of habituating your
consciousness to get into touch and keep in touch with these helpful forces
and for that you must accustom yourself to reject the impressions forced on you
by the others, depression, self-distrust, repining and all similar disturbances.
As for the actual mastery of a situation by occult
powers, it can only come by use and experiment as one develops strength by
exercises or develops a process in the laboratory by finding out through the
actual use of a power how it can and ought to be applied to the field in which
it operates. It is of no use waiting for the strength before one tries; the
strength will come with repeated trials. Neither must you fear failure or be
discouraged by failure for these things do not always succeed at once. These
are things one has to learn by personal experiences, how to get into touch with
the cosmic forces, how to relate or equate our individual action with theirs,
how to become an instrument of the Master Consciousness which we call the
Divine.
There is something a little too personal in your
attitude I mean the insistence on personal strength or weakness as the
determining factor. After all, for the greatest as for the smallest of us our
strength is not our own but given to us for the game that has to be played, the
work that we have to do. The strength may be formed in us, but its present
formation is not final, neither formation of power nor formation of weakness.
At any moment the formation may change at any moment one sees, especially
under the pressure of yoga, weakness changing into power, the incapable becoming
capable, suddenly or slowly the instrumental consciousness rising to a new
stature or developing
its latent powers. Above us, within us, around us is the All-Strength and it is
that that we have to rely on for our work, our development, our transforming
change. If we proceed with the faith in the work, in our instrumentality for the
work, in the Power that missions us, then in the very act of trial, of facing
and surmounting difficulties and failures, the strength will come and we shall
find our capacity to contain as much as we need of the All-Strength of which we
grow more and more perfect vessels.
1 Fasting comes
under the head; it is of no use for this purpose. Abandon that idea
altogether.
transform everything, driving away for ever all obscurity and all inertia and
establishing the radiant Energy, the perfect Light and the unchanging Bliss.
There and not in the mind or the higher vital is all the difficulty, but there
too must be the victory and the foundation of the new world. I do not wish to
disguise from you the difficulty of this great and tremendous change or the
possibility that you may have a long and hard work before you, but are you
really unwilling to face it and take your share in the great work? Will you
reject the greatness of this endeavour to follow a mad irrational impulse
towards some more exciting work of the hour or the moment for which you have no
true call in any part of your nature?
