Dealing with Circumstances-We tend to be disturbed or overwhelmed by circumstances. Is it a necessity or a habit which can be overcome? Is it possible to remain inwardly calm and undisturbed under all circumstances?
Circumstances: Results, Not Causes
It is an error or superstition to believe that an external thing or circumstance can be the cause of anything. All things and circumstances are the accompanying results of a Force that acts from behind the veil.
The Force acts and each thing reacts according to its own nature.
One must not take consequences for causes.
*
Never take physical happenings at their face value. They are always a clumsy attempt to express something else, the true thing which escapes your superficial understanding.
*
Do not mind the apparent contradictions. There is a truth to be found behind.
[CWM2, 14:213]
Circumstances: Results of Past Actions
(Someone asked for sympathy regarding his circumstances at the time)
I am full of sympathy but unshakably convinced that each one meets in this life the circumstances which he has, inwardly and outwardly, built for himself.
[CWM2, 14:213]
People keep lamenting about their lot and feel that their troubles and their unhappy reactions would go if other people and things were changed. Do you share my doubt about this feeling?
Each one is the artisan of his own miseries.
*
It is always a mistake to complain about the circumstances of our life, for they are the outward expression of what we are ourselves.
[CWM2, 14: 214]
Circumstances and One’s Inner Condition
Satisfaction does not depend on outer circumstances but on an inner condition.
*
People think that their condition depends on circumstances. But that is all false. If somebody is a “nervous wreck”, he thinks that if circumstances are favourable he will improve. But, actually, even if they are favourable he will remain what he is. All think they are feeling weak and tired because people are not nice to them. This is rubbish. It is not the circumstances that have to be changed: what is required is an inner change.
[CWM2, 14:215]
If you feel that a change is needed, it can be in the attitude, giving importance to what is to be said and realised and using the past as a preparation for the future. This is not a very difficult thing to do—and I am quite sure that you will easily do it.
[CWM2, 14:216]
I cannot equal those most absolute eyes, Although they rule my being, with the stars, Nor floral rich comparisons devise To detail sweetness that your body wears. Nor in the heavens hints of you I find, Nor dim suggestions in this thoughtful eve; The moonlight of your darker grace is blind. Who can with such pale delicacies deceive A naked burning heart? Only one place Satisfies me of you, where the feet That I shall never clasp, with beauty press The barren earth in one place only sweet, One face in the wide world alone divine, The only one that never can be mine.
What is needed is to profit by the discovery and get rid of the impediment. The Mother did not merely point out the impediment; she showed you very expressly how to get rid of it and at that time you understood her, though now (at the time of writing your letter to me) the light which you saw seems to have been clouded by your indulging your vital more and more in the bitter pastime of sadness. That was quite natural, for that is the result sadness always does bring. It is the reason why I object to the gospel of sorrow and to any Sadhana which makes sorrow one of its main planks (abhimāna, revolt, viraha). For sorrow is not, as Spinoza pointed out, a passage to a greater perfection, a way to Siddhi; it cannot be, for it confuses and weakens and distracts the mind, depresses the vital force, darkens the spirit. A relapse from joy and vital elasticity and Ananda to sorrow, self-distrust, despondency and weakness is a recoil from a greater to a lesser consciousness,―the habit of these moods show a clinging of something in the vital to the smaller, obscurer, dark and distressed movement out of which it is the very aim of Yoga to rise.
It is, therefore, quite incorrect to say that the Mother took away the wrong key with which you were trying to open the faery palace and left you with none at all. For she not only showed you the true key but gave it to you. It was not a mere vague exhortation to cheerfulness she gave you, but she described exactly the condition felt in the right kind of meditation―a state of inner rest, not of straining, of quiet opening, not of eager or desperate pulling, a harmonious giving of oneself to the Divine Force for its working, and in that quietude a sense of the Force working and a restful confidence allowing it to act without any unquiet interference. And she asked you if you had not experienced that condition and you said you had and knew it very well. Now that condition is the beginning of psychic opening and, if you have had it, you know what the psychic opening is; there is of course much more that afterwards comes to complete it but this is the fundamental condition into which all the rest can most easily come. What you should have done was to keep the key the Mother gave you present in your consciousness and apply it―not to go back and allow sadness and the repining view of the past to grow upon you. In this condition, which we term the right or the psychic attitude, there may and will be call, prayer, aspiration. Intensity, concentration will come of themselves, not by a hard effort or tense strain on the nature. Rejection of wrong movements, frank confession of defects are not only not incompatible, but helpful to it; but this attitude makes the rejection, the confession easy, spontaneous, entirely complete and sincere and effective. That is the experience of all who have consented to take this attitude.
I may say in passing that consciousness and receptivity are not the same thing; one may be receptive, yet externally unaware of how things are being done and of what is being done. The Force works, as I have repeatedly written, behind the veil; the results remain packed behind and come out afterwards, often slowly, little by little, until there is so much pressure that it breaks through somehow and forces itself upon the external nature. There lies the difference between a mental and a vital straining and pulling and a spontaneous psychic openness, and it is not at all the first time that we have spoken of the difference. The Mother and myself have written and spoken of it times without number and we have deprecated pulling1 and straining and advocated the attitude of psychic openness. It is not really a question of the right or the wrong key, but of putting the key in the lock in the right or the wrong way; either, because of some difficulty, you try to force the lock turning the key this way and that with violence or confidently and quietly give it the right turn and the door opens.
5-5-1932
There is a steady drawing of the Force possible which is not what I mean by pulling―drawing of the Force is quite common and helpful. ↩
31 March 1957 Self-deception is one of the most common movements in human beings. They deceive themselves at once with perfect candour and with perfect insincerity.
7 June 1963 Certainly it would have been better to be frank and sincere. Lying and dissimulation obscure the consciousness more than anything else.
My blessings are with you.
8 June 1963 You must go and spend a year away. This is necessary so that you can see, free from all constraint, whether the spiritual life is truly your aim and whether you can live that life in all sincerity, without dissimilation or hypocrisy and especially without pretending to be what you are not, for that kind of deceit is utterly disastrous to spiritual growth.
Keep in touch with me, write to me about your experience freely and sincerely, and to the extent that you feel the need for it my help will be with you.
True purity is sincerity, perfect truthfulness; without it there is no safety on the path.
With my blessings
CWM – New Words of the Mother – Volume 20 – pp.261
We have now completed our view of the path of Knowledge and seen to what it leads. First, the end of Yoga of Knowledge is God-possession, it is to possess God and be possessed by him through consciousness, through identification, through reflection of the divine Reality. But not merely in some abstraction away from our present existence, but here also; therefore to possess the Divine in himself, the Divine in the world, the Divine within, the Divine in all things and all beings. It is to possess oneness with God and through that to possess also oneness with the universal, with the cosmos and all existences; therefore to possess the infinite diversity also in the oneness, but on the basis of oneness and not on the basis of division. It is to possess God in his personality and his impersonality; in his purity free from qualities and in his infinite qualities; in time and beyond time; in his action and in his silence; in the finite and in the infinite. It is to possess him not only in pure self, but in all self; not only in self, but in Nature; not only in spirit, but in supermind, mind, life and body; to possess him with the spirit, with the mind, with the vital and the physical consciousness; and it is again for all these to be possessed by him, so that our whole being is one with him, full of him, governed and driven by him. It is, since God is oneness, for our physical consciousness to be one with the soul and the nature of the material universe; for our life, to be one with all life; for our mind, to be one with the universal mind; for our spirit, to be identified with the universal spirit. It is to merge in him in the absolute and find him in all relations.
Secondly, it is to put on the divine being and the divine nature. And since God is Sachchidananda, it is to raise our being into the divine being, our consciousness into the divine consciousness, our energy into the divine energy, our delight of existence into the divine delight of being. And it is not only to lift ourselves into this higher consciousness, but to widen into it in all our being, because it is to be found on all the planes of our existence and in all our members, so that our mental, vital, physical existence shall become full of the divine nature. Our intelligent mentality is to become a play of the divine knowledge-will, our mental soul-life a play of the divine love and delight, our vitality a play of the divine life, our physical being a mould of the divine substance. This God-action in us is to be realised by an opening of ourselves to the divine gnosis and divine Ananda and, in its fullness, by an ascent into and a permanent dwelling in the gnosis and the Ananda. For though we live physically on the material plane and in normal outward-going life the mind and soul are preoccupied with material existence, this externality of our being is not a binding limitation. We can raise our internal consciousness from plane to plane of the relations of Purusha with Prakriti, and even become, instead of the mental being dominated by the physical soul and nature, the gnostic being or the bliss-self and assume the gnostic or the bliss nature. And by this raising of the inner life we can transform our whole outward-going existence; instead of a life dominated by matter we shall then have a life dominated by spirit with all its circumstances moulded and determined by the purity of being, the consciousness infinite even in the finite, the divine energy, the divine joy and bliss of the spirit.
This is the goal; we have seen also what are the essentials of the method. But here we have first to consider briefly one side of the question of method which we have hitherto left untouched. In the system of an integral Yoga the principle must be that all life is a part of the Yoga; but the knowledge which we have been describing seems to be not the knowledge of what is ordinarily understood as life, but of something behind life. There are two kinds of knowledge, that which seeks to understand the apparent phenomenon of existence externally, by an approach from outside, through the intellect,—this is the lower knowledge, the knowledge of the apparent world; secondly, the knowledge which seeks to know the truth of existence from within, in its source and reality, by spiritual realisation. Ordinarily, a sharp distinction is drawn between the two, and it is supposed that when we get to the higher knowledge, the God-knowledge, then the rest, the world-knowledge, becomes of no concern to us: but in reality they are two sides of one seeking. All knowledge is ultimately the knowledge of God, through himself, through Nature, through her works. Mankind has first to seek this knowledge through the external life; for until its mentality is sufficiently developed, spiritual knowledge is not really possible, and in proportion as it is developed, the possibilities of spiritual knowledge become richer and fuller.
Science, art, philosophy, ethics, psychology, the knowledge of man and his past, action itself are means by which we arrive at the knowledge of the workings of God through Nature and through life. At first it is the workings of life and forms of Nature which occupy us, but as we go deeper and deeper and get a completer view and experience, each of these lines brings us face to face with God. Science at its limits, even physical Science, is compelled to perceive in the end the infinite, the universal, the spirit, the divine intelligence and will in the material universe. Still more easily must this be the end with the psychic sciences which deal with the operations of higher and subtler planes and powers of our being and come into contact with the beings and the phenomena of the worlds behind which are unseen, not sensible by our physical organs, but ascertainable by the subtle mind and senses. Art leads to the same end; the aesthetic human being intensely preoccupied with Nature through aesthetic emotion must in the end arrive at spiritual emotion and perceive not only the infinite life, but the infinite presence within her; preoccupied with beauty in the life of man he must in the end come to see the divine, the universal, the spiritual in humanity. Philosophy dealing with the principles of things must come to perceive the Principle of all these principles and investigate its nature, attributes and essential workings. So ethics must eventually perceive that the law of good which it seeks is the law of God and depends on the being and nature of the Master of the law. Psychology leads from the study of mind and the soul in living beings to the perception of the one soul and one mind in all things and beings. The history and study of man like the history and study of Nature leads towards the perception of the eternal and universal Power and Being whose thought and will work out through the cosmic and human evolution. Action itself forces us into contact with the divine Power which works through, uses, overrules our actions. The intellect begins to perceive and understand, the emotions to feel and desire and revere, the will to turn itself to the service of the Divine without whom Nature and man cannot exist or move and by conscious knowledge of whom alone we can arrive at our highest possibilities.
It is here that Yoga steps in. It begins by using knowledge, emotion and action for the possession of the Divine. For Yoga is the conscious and perfect seeking of union with the Divine towards which all the rest was an ignorant and imperfect moving and seeking. At first, then, Yoga separates itself from the action and method of the lower knowledge. For while this lower knowledge approaches God indirectly from outside and never enters his secret dwelling-place, Yoga calls us within and approaches him directly; while that seeks him through the intellect and becomes conscious of him from behind a veil, Yoga seeks him through realisation, lifts the veil and gets the full vision; where that only feels the presence and the influence, Yoga enters into the presence and fills itself with the influence; where that is only aware of the workings and through them gets some glimpse of the Reality, Yoga identifies our inner being with the Reality and sees from that the workings. Therefore the methods of Yoga are different from the methods of the lower knowledge.
The method of Yoga in knowledge must always be a turning of the eye inward and, so far as it looks upon outer things, a penetrating of the surface appearances to get at the one eternal reality within them. The lower knowledge is preoccupied with the appearances and workings; it is the first necessity of the higher to get away from them to the Reality of which they are the appearances and the Being and Power of conscious existence of which they are the workings. It does this by three movements each necessary to each other, by each of which the others become complete,—purification, concentration, identification. The object of purification is to make the whole mental being a clear mirror in which the divine reality can be reflected, a clear vessel and an unobstructing channel into which the divine presence and through which the divine influence can be poured, a subtilised stuff which the divine nature can take possession of, new-shape and use to divine issues. For the mental being at present reflects only the confusions created by the mental and physical view of the world, is a channel only for the disorders of the ignorant lower nature and full of obstructions and impurities which prevent the higher from acting; therefore the whole shape of our being is deformed and imperfect, indocile to the highest influences and turned in its action to ignorant and inferior utilities. It reflects even the world falsely; it is incapable of reflecting the Divine.
Concentration is necessary, first, to turn the whole will and mind from the discursive divagation natural to them, following a dispersed movement of the thoughts, running after many-branching desires, led away in the track of the senses and the outward mental response to phenomena: we have to fix the will and the thought on the eternal and real behind all, and this demands an immense effort, a one-pointed concentration. Secondly, it is necessary in order to break down the veil which is erected by our ordinary mentality between ourselves and the truth; for outer knowledge can be picked up by the way, by ordinary attention and reception, but the inner, hidden and higher truth can only be seized by an absolute concentration of the mind on its object, an absolute concentration of the will to attain it and, once attained, to hold it habitually and securely unite oneself with it. For identification is the condition of complete knowledge and possession; it is the intense result of a habitual purified reflecting of the reality and an entire concentration on it; and it is necessary in order to break down entirely that division and separation of ourselves from the divine being and the eternal reality which is the normal condition of our unregenerated ignorant mentality.
None of these things can be done by the methods of the lower knowledge. It is true that here also they have a preparing action, but up to a certain point and to a certain degree of intensity only, and it is where their action ceases that the action of Yoga takes up our growth into the Divine and finds the means to complete it. All pursuit of knowledge, if not vitiated by a too earthward tendency, tends to refine, to subtilise, to purify the being. In proportion as we become more mental, we attain to a subtler action of our whole nature which becomes more apt to reflect and receive higher thoughts, a purer will, a less physical truth, more inward influences. The power of ethical knowledge and the ethical habit of thought and will to purify is obvious. Philosophy not only purifies the reason and predisposes it to the contact of the universal and the infinite, but tends to stabilise the nature and create the tranquillity of the sage; and tranquillity is a sign of increasing self-mastery and purity. The preoccupation with universal beauty even in its aesthetic forms has an intense power for refining and subtilising the nature, and at its highest it is a great force for purification. Even the scientific habit of mind and the disinterested preoccupation with cosmic law and truth not only refine the reasoning and observing faculty, but have, when not counteracted by other tendencies, a steadying, elevating and purifying influence on the mind and moral nature which has not been sufficiently noticed.
The concentration of the mind and the training of the will towards the reception of the truth and living in the truth is also an evident result, a perpetual necessity of these pursuits; and at the end or in their highest intensities they may and do lead first to an intellectual, then to a reflective perception of the divine Reality which may culminate in a sort of preliminary identification with it. But all this cannot go beyond a certain point. The systematic purification of the whole being for an integral reflection and taking in of the divine reality can only be done by the special methods of Yoga. Its absolute concentration has to take the place of the dispersed concentrations of the lower knowledge; the vague and ineffective identification which is all the lower knowledge can bring, has to be replaced by the complete, intimate, imperative and living union which Yoga brings.
Nevertheless, Yoga does not either in its path or in its attainment exclude and throw away the forms of the lower knowledge, except when it takes the shape of an extreme asceticism or a mysticism altogether intolerant of this other divine mystery of the world-existence. It separates itself from them by the intensity, largeness and height of its objective and the specialisation of its methods to suit its aim; but it not only starts from them, but for a certain part of the way carries them with it and uses them as auxiliaries. Thus it is evident how largely ethical thought and practice,—not so much external as internal conduct,—enter into the preparatory method of Yoga, into its aim at purity. Again the whole method of Yoga is psychological; it might almost be termed the consummate practice of a perfect psychological knowledge. The data of philosophy are the supports from which it begins in the realisation of God through the principles of his being; only it carries the intelligent understanding which is all philosophy gives, into an intensity which carries it beyond thought into vision and beyond understanding into realisation and possession; what philosophy leaves abstract and remote, it brings into a living nearness and spiritual concreteness. The aesthetic and emotional mind and aesthetic forms are used by Yoga as a support for concentration even in the Yoga of knowledge and are, sublimated, the whole means of the Yoga of love and delight, as life and action, sublimated, are the whole means of the Yoga of works. Contemplation of God in Nature, contemplation and service of God in man and in the life of man and of the world in its past, present and future, are equally elements of which the Yoga of Knowledge can make use to complete the realisation of God in all things. Only, all is directed to the one aim, directed towards God, filled with the idea of the divine, infinite, universal existence so that the outward-going, sensuous, pragmatical preoccupation of the lower knowledge with phenomena and forms is replaced by the one divine preoccupation. After attainment the same character remains. The Yogin continues to know and see God in the finite and be a channel of God-consciousness and God-action in the world; therefore the knowledge of the world and the enlarging and uplifting of all that appertains to life comes within his scope. Only, in all he sees God, sees the supreme reality, and his motive of work is to help mankind towards the knowledge of God and the possession of the supreme reality. He sees God through the data of science, God through the conclusions of philosophy, God through the forms of Beauty and the forms of Good, God in all the activities of life, God in the past of the world and its effects, in the present and its tendencies, in the future and its great progression. Into any or all of these he can bring his illumined vision and his liberated power of the spirit. The lower knowledge has been the step from which he has risen to the higher; the higher illumines for him the lower and makes it part of itself, even if only its lower fringe and most external radiation.
SABCL – Synthesis of Yoga I – Volume 20 All life is Yoga
The problem finally reduces itself almost to this: to replace the mental government of intelligence by the government of a spiritualised consciousness.
This is a very interesting experience: how the same actions, the same work, the same observations, the same relations with the environment (near and far) take place in the mind through intelligence, and in the consciousness through experience. And this is what the body is now learning, to replace the mental regime of intelligence by the spiritual government of consciousness. And this does bring about (it looks like nothing, you may not notice it), but it does bring about a tremendous difference, so much so that it increases a hundredfold the possibilities of the body…. When the body is subject to rules, even if they are broad, even if they are comprehensive, it is the slave of these rules, and its possibilities are limited by these rules. But when it is governed by the Spirit and the Consciousness, that gives it an incomparable possibility and flexibility. And it is that which will give it the capacity to prolong its life, prolong its duration; it means the replacement of the intellectual government of the mind by the government of the Spirit, of the Consciousness—the Consciousness. Outwardly it does not seem to make much difference, but… my experience is this (because now my body no longer obeys the mind or the intelligence, not at all—it does not even understand how this can be done), but more and more, better and better, it follows the guidance, the urge of the Consciousness. And then it sees, almost every minute, the tremendous difference that this makes…. For example, time has lost its value its—fixed value. Exactly the same thing can be done in a short time or a long time. Necessities have lost their authority. One can adapt oneself like this or like that. All the laws, these laws that were laws of Nature, have lost all their despotism, one might say; it is no longer as before. It is enough to be always, always supple, attentive and… “responsive” to the influence of the Consciousness—the Consciousness in its omnipotence—to pass through all that, with an extraordinary suppleness.
That is the discovery which is being made more and more.
It is wonderful, is it not? It is a wonderful discovery.
It is like a progressive victory over all the imperatives. Thus all laws of Nature, naturally, all the human laws, all the habits, all the rules, all that becomes supple and ends by being non-existent. And yet one can maintain a regular rhythm that facilitates action—it is not contrary to this suppleness. But it is a suppleness in the execution, in the adaptation, that comes in and changes everything. From the point of view of hygiene, from the point of view of health, from the point of view of organisation, from the point of view of relations with others, all that has lost not only its aggressiveness (for it is sufficient to be sane—sane and sober and calm—for it to lose its aggressiveness), but its absolutism, its imperative rule; it is all gone, it is gone.
So, one sees: as the process becomes more and more perfect—”perfect” means integral, total, leaving nothing behind—it is necessarily, inevitably, the victory over death. Not that the dissolution of cells which death represents does not exist, but it will exist only when it will be necessary: not as an absolute law, but as one of the procedures, when it is necessary.
Above all, it is this: all that the Mind has brought of the rigid, the absolute, the almost invincible… will disappear. And simply that, by transferring the supreme power to the Supreme Consciousness.
Perhaps it is that which the ancient seers meant when they spoke of transferring the power of Nature or the power of Prakriti to Purusha, transferring it from Prakriti to Purusha. It is perhaps that which they expressed in this way.
You must learn to act always from within—from your inner being which is in contact with the Divine. The outer should be a mere instrument and should not be allowed at all to compel or dictate your speech, thought or action.
All should be done quietly from within—working, speaking, reading, writing as part of the real consciousness—not with the dispersed and unquiet movement of the ordinary consciousness.
One can work and remain quiet within. Quietude does not mean having an empty mind or doing no action at all.
When one is concentrated within, the body can go on doing its work by the Force acting within it. Even the external consciousness can work separately under the motion of the Force while the rest of the consciousness is in concentration.
It is a little difficult at first to combine the inward condition with the attention to the outward work and mingling with others, but a time comes when it is possible for the inner being to be in full union with the Mother while the action comes out of that concentrated union and is consciously guided in all its details so that some part of the consciousness can attend to everything outside, even be concentrated upon it and yet feel the inward concentration in the Mother.[p.254]
It is a very good sign that even in spite of full work the inner working was felt behind and succeeded in establishing the silence. A time comes for the sadhak in the end when the consciousness and the deeper experience go on happening even in full work or in sleep, while speaking or in any kind of activity.
It is probably because at the time of the work the tendency of the consciousness to externalise itself is greater (that is always the case), so the pressure grows stronger in order to produce a contrary inward tendency. This produces some tendency to go inside in the way of a complete internalisation (going into a sort of samadhi); but what should happen during work is a going inside in a wakeful condition and becoming aware of the psychic within as you used to do under the pressure while the outer mind does the work. This is the condition that must eventually come.
The stress of the Power is all right, but there is really nothing incompatible between the inner silence and action. It is to that combination that the sadhana must move.
In Peace and Silence the Eternal manifests; allow nothing to disturb you and the Eternal will manifest; have perfect equality in face of all and the Eternal will be there…. Yes, we should not put too much intensity, too much effort into our seeking for Thee; the effort and intensity become a veil in front of Thee; we must not desire to see Thee, for that is still a mental agitation which obscures Thy Eternal Presence; it is in the most complete Peace, Serenity and Equality that all is Thou even as Thou art all, and the least vibration in this perfectly pure and calm atmosphere is an obstacle to Thy manifestation. No haste, no inquietude, no tension, Thou, nothing but Thou, without any analysis or any objectivising, and Thou art there without a possible doubt, for all becomes a Holy Peace and a Sacred Silence.
And that is better than all the meditations in the world.
One afternoon, in a large town in a rainy country, I saw seven or eight vehicles full of children. That morning, they had been taken into the country to play in the fields, but the bad weather had made them return home early in the rain.
And yet they were singing, laughing and waving merrily to the passers-by.
They had kept their cheerfulness in this gloomy weather. If one of them had felt sad, the songs of the others would have cheered him. And for the people hurrying by, who heard the children’s laughter, it seemed that the sky had brightened for a moment.
Amir was a prince of Khorasan, and he lived in a grand style. When he set out to war, three hundred camels would carry the pots and pans and plates for his kitchen.
One day he was taken prisoner by the Caliph Ismaïl. But misfortune does not exempt a man from hunger. So when Amir saw his chief cook nearby, he asked the good man to prepare him a meal.
The cook had one piece of meat left which he put in a pot on the fire. Then he went to find some vegetables to give a little taste to the stew.
A passing dog sniffed at the meat and put his nose in the pot. Then, feeling the heat of the fire, he drew back sharply. But he was so clumsy that the pot stuck on his head and he ran off in a panic, unable to get rid of it.
Amir burst out laughing at the sight.
“Why,” demanded the officer on guard, “are you laughing when you have every reason to be sad?”
But Amir showed him the dog streaking away from the camp and said, “I am laughing at the thought that this very morning it took three hundred camels to transport my kitchen and now one dog is enough to carry it all away!”
Amir took pleasure in being cheerful though he took no trouble to bring cheerfulness to others. However, we should give him credit for his light-heartedness. If he was able to joke in the midst of such serious difficulties, is it not in our power to smile in the face of lesser worries?
In Persia, there was a woman who used to sell honey. She had a very pleasant manner, and customers thronged around her stall. And the poet who tells her story declares that even if she had sold poison, people would still have bought it from her as if it were honey.
A sour-tempered man saw what a great profit she made from her sweet wares and decided to take up the same trade.
So he set up a stall, but behind the rows of honey-pots his face was like vinegar. All those who came near were sullenly treated. And so everyone passed by, leaving him his wares. “Not even a fly ventured on his honey,” says the poet. By evening he had still earned nothing. A woman noticed him and said to her husband, “A bitter face makes bitter honey.”
Did the woman who sold honey smile only to attract customers? Let us rather hope that her cheerfulness came from her good nature. We are not in this world only to buy or sell; we should be here as comrades one to another. The good woman’s customers felt that she was something more than a honey-seller: she was a cheerful citizen of the world.
In the next story I shall tell you, the joyous spirit bubbles up like water from a beautiful spring. The person it tells of had nothing to do with the desire for custom or gain: he was the famed and glorious Rama.
Rama slew Ravana the ten-headed and twenty-armed demon-king. I have already told you the beginning of the story. It had been the most terrible of all battles. Thousands of monkeys and bears had been killed in the service of Rama, and the corpses of their demon enemies were piled one upon another. Their king lay lifeless on the ground. But how hard it had been to fell him! Time and again Rama had cut off his ten heads and his twenty arms, but they all grew back immediately so that he had to cut them off many times over; they were so numerous that at last it seemed as if the sky was raining down arms and heads.
When the terrible war was ended the monkeys and bears who had been slain were brought back to life, and all stood like a great army awaiting orders.
Glorious Rama whose manner remained simple and calm after the victory, looked kindly upon his faithful friends.
Then Vibhishan, who was to succeed Ravana on the throne, had a chariot-load of jewels and rich robes brought for the warriors who had fought so valiantly.
“Listen, friend Vibhishan,” said Rama, “rise high in the air and scatter your gifts before the army.”
The king did as he was told, and from his chariot in midair strewed glittering jewels and brightly coloured robes.
The monkeys and bears tumbled over one another as they rushed to seize the falling treasures. It was a merry scuffle.
And Rama laughed heartily and his wife, the lady Sita, and his brother Lakshman laughed with him.
For those who are courageous know how to laugh like this. There is nothing more cordial than a good and hearty cheerfulness. And the word ‘cordial’ has the same origin as the word ‘courage’. In difficult moments, the cheerfulness that comes from a cordial spirit is truly a kind of courage.
Surely it is not necessary to be always laughing; but liveliness, serenity, good humour are never out of place. And how helpful they are! With them the mother makes the home happy for her children; the nurse hastens the recovery of her patient; the master lightens the task of his servants; the workman inspires the goodwill of his comrades; the traveller helps his companions on their hard journey; the citizen fosters hope in the hearts of his countrymen.
And you, happy boys and girls, is there anything your cheerfulness cannot accomplish?
Those who still believe in gods can certainly continue to worship them if they feel like it—but they must know that this creed and this worship has nothing to do with the teaching of Sri Aurobindo and no connection whatever with the Supramental Realisation.
1964
Even the gods have to make their surrender to the Supreme if the Divine creation is to be realised upon earth.
What is the origin, significance and purpose of festivals such as Deepavali, Dasera, Rakhipurnima, etc.—and also some of the western festivals? On these days do the gods respond more to human aspirations? Thirdly, what is the connection between the inner truth and the external functions of these festivals? Lastly, what should be our attitude towards these festivals?
Men like festivals.
9 November 1969
As an answer to my letter on the significance of festivals you wrote to me: “Men like festivals.” Does it then mean that they are men’s fancy and whim?
Have they no meaning and no utility?
It is men who give a meaning to festivals in order to legitimate their presence.
21 November 1969
CWM – Words of the Mother III Volume 15 – pp.13 – 14
![Dealing with Circumstances-We tend to be disturbed or overwhelmed by circumstances. Is it a necessity or a habit which can be overcome? Is it possible to remain inwardly calm and undisturbed under all circumstances? Circumstances: Results, Not Causes It is an error or superstition to believe that an external thing or circumstance can be the cause of anything. All things and circumstances are the accompanying results of a Force that acts from behind the veil. The Force acts and each thing reacts according to its own nature. One must not take consequences for causes. * Never take physical happenings at their face value. They are always a clumsy attempt to express something else, the true thing which escapes your superficial understanding. * Do not mind the apparent contradictions. There is a truth to be found behind. [CWM2, 14:213] Circumstances: Results of Past Actions (Someone asked for sympathy regarding his circumstances at the time) I am full of sympathy but unshakably convinced that each one meets in this life the circumstances which he has, inwardly and outwardly, built for himself. [CWM2, 14:213] People keep lamenting about their lot and feel that their troubles and their unhappy reactions would go if other people and things were changed. Do you share my doubt about this feeling? Each one is the artisan of his own miseries. * It is always a mistake to complain about the circumstances of our life, for they are the outward expression of what we are ourselves. [CWM2, 14: 214] Circumstances and One’s Inner Condition Satisfaction does not depend on outer circumstances but on an inner condition. * People think that their condition depends on circumstances. But that is all false. If somebody is a “nervous wreck”, he thinks that if circumstances are favourable he will improve. But, actually, even if they are favourable he will remain what he is. All think they are feeling weak and tired because people are not nice to them. This is rubbish. It is not the circumstances that have to be changed: what is required is an inner change. [CWM2, 14:215] If you feel that a change is needed, it can be in the attitude, giving importance to what is to be said and realised and using the past as a preparation for the future. This is not a very difficult thing to do—and I am quite sure that you will easily do it. [CWM2, 14:216]](https://omaurorayoga.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/img-20160925-wa0075.jpg?w=656)
SRI AUROBINDO AND THE MOTHER 