Notes On Life And Yoga

1. All past relationships, both family and social, must either fall away or be newly formed in Mother's consciousness, i.e. to the extent that these persons turn to Her, accept Her, serve Her either consciously or as unconscious instruments, to that extent they may continue and only in that context. Otherwise they always fall away of their own. And no initiative was taken in most cases with those who turned to Her, it happened of itself, sometimes after some years of no contact with me.
2. I said that what Sri Aurobindo has achieved as realizations can come to us as experiences. But this was merely a toned down way of saying His realization can come to us and become our own.
3. Sri Aurobindo's consciousness needs channels for expression on earth. Each one who comes to Him and serves Him can be such a channel to the degree of his identification with Him and rejection of his lower nature - and through these channels His consciousness can reach in many directions and great distances.
4. We must identify with Him as much as possible, merge in Him, but still a degree of difference is naturally inevitable and permissible due to the different stress of development in each person, a different manner or mode of expression of the one inner Truth Consciousness He represents.
5. I made a psychological study of myself, tracing all my traits, habits, strengths and weaknesses to their origin in my own life, or their origination and adoption from my parents. Later I tried the experiment on my community and friends of my background. Each time I saw a trait in them, good or bad, I looked for the same one in myself and I always found it, though sometimes not on the surface but still there a little behind or inside.
6. It is only when one exhausts all one's energies and efforts and capacities - physical, vital or mental - that Mother's Grace takes over. If you stop at the penultimate step, nothing happens. It is a law and the same applies in universal nature.

11.12.72.

1. Working at Mother Estates is like working for Mother in Her own room. There is no time to think of consecration, ho human mechanism which can consecrate, one must be consecration.
2. In our work we must be concerned with our consciousness - all the rest, personnel, money, etc. will come if the work is truly Her Will and if our consciousness is pure.
3. And those who offer their services or resources - it is their privilege to be given such an opportunity and their reward is in the hands of the Divine.

16.12.72.

1. Jnana Bhakti Mata: Love is the Mother of Knowledge. The deepest Truth of each thing yields itself up only when we approach with adoration, reverence, love, when we give ourselves to it.
2. Reading Savitri: One reads and a certain mental understanding may be there or come. If one clears the mind and waits silently receptive, a deeper layer of meaning reveals itself. One can in this way go beyond mental understanding to a purer experience of the consciousness embodied in the line. In the purest depths one can reach the white figure of Savitri - the Pure Consciousness - but this requires a very high level of Silence.
3. When one exhausts one's energies 100%, the Divine takes over. Does this mean in practical life to give to each element of a work absolute priority, irregardless of its importance or the time spent until it is fulfilled or we are exhausted? Not necessarily. In practice we must evaluate the importance of each element and devote ourselves fully to it to that extent of expending our resources. If no success is achieved it may be an indication of Divine intention at this time and we may pass on. I each case it is a matter of Sincerity - we must give to each work our sincerest interest and the deepest consecration of which we are now capable. Not an iron rule or egoistic stubborn persistence but a sincere offering of our energies is required (and an unfailing goodwill and self-abnegation in the work).
4. Concentration is itself a sadhana. To concentrate fully on all that we do.
5. Adoration - an intensity of the heart which must be carefully distinguished from so many other vital intensities. When this active intensity becomes passive it is called obedience and when this obedience spontaneously wells up and flows out in sweetness it is worship.
6. A discipline: Repeat Mother's name as a silent mantra for 24 hours. During work periods give over the repetition to a deep inner part of the being which will continue it during the work even if we are not conscious of it.
7. If one gives aid to someone who is hostile to us we imbibe by our sympathy his lower hostile consciousness and suffer for our good turn.

18.12.72.

1. Money is the easiest of things to move, vital desires more difficult, mental attitudes very difficult to command.
2. If someone says I understand all that you say but I don't accept - there is no hope of convincing him, it must be left up to the Grace and to time.
3. To bring your parents to a complete acceptance of your choice of life do this exercise: mentally analyse their life in relation to their parents and you will see that there was a progress, a divergence, a step forward by discarding some of the earlier values, a step towards higher consciousness. That same movement will be seen in your life only the jump was more radical. By seeing and understanding this, you can dissolve the resistances even before they come to speak of them.
4. Mother's way: is to always see a man's strengths and ignore his weaknesses, to make use of, encourage, develop these strengths and not to harp on or complain of his weak points. This should be our way also, for it is a truth of consciousness and promotes the greatest cooperation and collaboration from all people. This is clearly Her way.
5. Some progress best through work, others through consciousness. Elements (our weaknesses, the nature of truth and Divine working) are revealed very clearly and repeatedly in work; in pure consciousness they reveal themselves very subtly and if a thread is ignored, it quickly disappears and is lost.
6. Life is a field for communion between the inner divine and the divine in the world. Each habitual thought, reaction or movement in our daily life prevents this communion from being conscious and revealing a constant joy and freshness. Consecration is the decision to let the Divine take hold of an act. By consecrating we can make the communion conscious.
7. Each habitual unconscious movement is a drainage on our conscious will - controlled energies. So we must by consecration bring all movements, thoughts, emotions under conscious control.
8. The very first rule is one of balance - to balance the energy expended by time of patient rest and suspension, to establish an even level of consecration throughout the day in place of fluctuating extremes.
9. When one meets obstacles and problems in work rather than relying on one's own skills, endowments, resources, consecrate and with faith rely on the Divine. In place of tension and strain and anxiety, there is calm certitude.Joy in work comes from this faith, from a constant learning of new skills and continuous perfection of action.

25.12.72.

1. Sometimes the Divine Will goes to great lengths to awaken a soul, even run after & pursue the sleeping soul. But once the soul awakes, the Divine will turn its back, ignore it completely, make the soul follow in pursuit.
2. There is a source of experience of impersonal non-human joy and love. Only when the being has at least once experienced that, can it be said that the yoga has truly begun. That impersonal joy can be given to others, thrown out in a burst of love which initially leaves one empty for long periods but prepares one as a channel and vessel for much greater filling and giving to others.
3. Every social circumstance and each moment of work is an occasion for putting oneself in relation to the Divine. The method is consecration.
4. In social meetings we must rise above unconscious social custom and consciously attempt to enter into relation with the Divine in others. Success is indicated by control of the situation and a smooth harmonious working.
5. The attitude of other people to you will be exactly as is your relation to the Higher Consciousness.
6. In dealing with people we must meet them as they are and where they are from the centre of our consciousness that is in touch with the Divine.
7. Education: In all areas of experience, in all circumstances, inter-actions, fields of inquiry, the child can be shown that the Truth is multi-dimensional, many-sided, unexpressed by any single statement or viewpoint or experience. At all times he can be trained to look immediately to all contrary and opposing elements for the truth in them. There can be an emphasis not on a precise mental expression of a whole situation which is never possible but on precise formulation of individual elements and a holistic vision of their harmonious integral relationship in the whole. Always in seeking to understand, the capacity for mental differentiation and delimitation must be transcended by an intuitive faculty for integration and unification.
8. In every educational situation, which means in all situations, the child must learn to cultivate a dual means of knowledge based on a simultaneous or closely linked perception of (a) the surface movements, distinct and separate elements, oppositions, conflict of forces, fine shades of variation and individuality and (b) an underlying oneness, inner unity, harmony in law of movement or being, greater reconciliation, the centre from which all aspects emanate and to which they return.
9. In each area of observation we can cultivate this complementarity of (a) difference-oneness, (b) inner-outer, (c) the varying perspective from different viewpoints, i.e. different levels of awareness, experience, consciousness - not only in breath of our view, focused or embracing, but from various heights and planes of our being. By studying things with this emphasis on the differing perception on mental, vital, and physical planes we learn to clearly distinguish these movements, and separate and better control their functions which will be purified by the separation and later harmonized by the soul's will.
10. A child must learn to perceive the core of Truth, Divinity, Goodness in all events, people, things - to foster, nourish, emphasis and lead to supremacy this Truth. Yet simultaneously to recognize and reject all that distorts or oppose its manifestation. So each child's traits must be purified to reveal and developed to fully exploit their hidden possibilities for good, e.g. stubbornness strength and perseverance in seeking and serving the Divine. Traits that cannot be so transformed must be ignored in others and rejected in oneself.

26.12.72.

1. Regarding one's past lives, it is best not to enquire about or allow the mind to dwell on these things so long as there is even a shade of mental involvement and excitement, of vanity or spiritual egoism. When one no longer has any desire to know, only then can one safely know, and that knowledge will come unsought despite our attempts to evade it. Try this experiment: attempt to know all of your own strengths very well, but learn to perceive them as if they belonged to a second person, objectively and with detachment.
2. Ramana Maharshi is a great light and an opening consciousness can be receptive to such a light in a photograph. But his path is other than Sri Aurobindo's and any traveling toward it is just distance which must be retread to return to this path. Sri Aurobindo has said that when one mixes two paths they both get disordered. It is better to cling to one no matter how limited it may be.
3. However people react towards you, in some measure you possess that same tendency or attitude towards the Divine.
4. We must be able to apply Sri Aurobindo's teachings to practical approaches and modern problems if we would expect the world to be open to his philosophy and perspective.
5. The Indian wife: her greatest joy and perfection comes when she is completely forgotten and ignored, a pure servant. She is offended when addressed as a separate individual other than her husband.
6. Often when someone asks something of you it is the very thing which forces are pressing on him to effectuate yet at the moment he lacks the awareness or receptivity to take up the action.
7. Each time a great thinker propounds a new philosophy, the language in which he expresses it is enriched and grows. It is not possible to translate this new work into another language accurately except by a similar act of enrichment and growth of the language by a translation which is creative, by a new creation.
8. We need the Divine now. We must make the Divine need us and seek us as the necessary instruments of its manifestation.
9. Love and knowledge complement, enhance, deepen and widen each other. The truest and highest knowledge is born of Love.

27.12.72.

1. Try to establish some absolutes in your life. Start with the material level, e.g. absolute of order, economy of resources or energies (economy of speech). Then trace this to the vital and mental levels to see how that absolute must be established there to perfectly reflect in the physical. Finally trace it to the spiritual level, to consecration and the relation with the Divine necessary for a perfect physical perfection.
2. A response of satisfaction whether to a job well done, a recognition of one's progress or a particular strength, praise or recognition by others - is always a movement toward stagnation. Satisfaction must be replaced by a spiritual response composed of (1) awareness of the positive element, (2) detachment and impersonality concerning it, (3) recognition of its counter quality which is also most likely present, (4) aspiration toward greater perfection and strengthening of the weak point.
3. Whatever the movement of opposition between you and parents, that same movement will likely be found in their relation to their parents. You inherit their tendency and also the resistance their parents posed against them and they now pose against you.
4. All philosophies and religions appeal fundamentally to a part of the instrumental being - mind, emotions, sensational, vital, etc. True spirituality draws rather by a direct contact with the soul. To outsiders who have not experienced Mother's power to bring out the soul, this life will always appear as a religion, at best a new and better system of beliefs and worship. The fundamental difference in consciousness cannot be mentally communicated, it must be felt.
5. One should never feel sorrow - for something done or left undone, an opportunity seemingly lost - all happens for the soul's swiftest evolution.
6. There is no place in this yoga for straining, anxious seeking. Even if we know we are to meet the Divine tomorrow, we must remain detached. There must be a balance and rhythm. We must exhaust all our possibilities and make a maximum effort and yet do so without straining.

6.1.73.

Each new gain on the peaks of mind or heart must be brought down into life and implemented there so that all parts of the being are raised a corresponding degree. To bring the entire mind, not just a single point of it, or the entire heart to a new level, requires a tremendous energy far more than the being can self-generate. This energy must be found by putting heart and mind in active communion with pure creative consciousness - by establishing for however briefly an action of mind or heart which emanates from the pure conscious centre behind and floods the being with freshness. One must learn to "not think" from that centre and to love from a deeper than human level where love radiates spontaneously.

8.1.73.

1. We should not be in a hurry or impatient even in spiritual matters but when life pushes swiftly of its own accord we should try to follow its rhythm.
2. One should not feel sorry for his weaknesses, for then one is likely to feel joy for his strengths. In either case a neutral, detached objectivity is best, seeing strengths and weaknesses impersonally. If we are sorry for a weakness in ourselves we will be sorry for the same weakness in others. In either case we must realize that the soul has taken on this particular weakness as a necessary experience in its evolution, as an essential mode of progress to be used and transcended.
3. When people act on me in life I have learned not to respond in life but rather spiritually. I do not take initiative and consequently life moves toward me and I accept all it brings good and bad, without seeking to alter or avoid. If one reacts in life, one depends on one's strength, experience and skill which may be much greater in a completely unspiritual person. One must respond yogically, only then can one rise above and be successful.
4. The weaknesses and deformations of which one is conscious are much less dangerous to progress than a man's strengths - it is there that we allow unconsciousness to grow and remain. "A known enemy is better than an unknown friend".

9.1.73.

1. Just hand in mid-air. Suspend all opinions and judgments, right or wrong, all knowledge. Rediscover everything a new, even what you understand about yoga.
2. Do three exercises:
   1. Repeat Mother's name in your heart. Retain it as constant remembrance.
   2. Perfectly establish a minimum level of consecration throughout the day and don't allow it to fall below that level.
   3. Mentally remember that in each object, person, action - it is the Divine.
3. After each good experience, remember to consecrate the aftermath - always something will try to spoil it.
4. Make a list of all weaknesses you see in others - you will find almost all of them in yourself.
5. It is a minimum requirement of the yoga that we at least follow all Mother's explicit rules. In each one that rubs us the wrong way we will uncover a resistance and an area for progress.
6. We should accept every experience that comes to us in life with gratitude and love - always it is the Divine caressing or knocking us about for our swiftest growth. We must be grateful even when others wrong us or neglect us or hurt us.
7. Exercise for the heart: send love to everyone you contact.
8. In each defect you find in yourself and in others, as a mental exercise conceive of its spiritual counterpart, that of which it is a deformation.
9. Food consciousness can go in one day if you detach the mind from it.
10. We should be grateful for the bad that comes to us but we should not call for more bad, anymore than ask for more good. Nature has a mechanism of responding to a call for more ill-fortune by complying with the request.
11. It is not enough if we can accept what the Divine does and how He treats us after mental understanding, we must accept implicitly, immediately, on faith that every action towards us is True and we should be grateful. The only legitimate reaction to the Divine is Love, but love can come only when the person, the ego, disappears.
12. There are many dangers in yoga, one of the greatest is boredom. We must never allow ourselves to be bored for a single moment. Fatigue, anger, irritation are alright - boredom is not - it is a state of emptiness.
13. Some have the knowledge but not the will or the energy. Others the will but not the knowledge. We need all and above all we need perseverance.
14. Emotionally, if there is joy, bring in peace (or silence) so that joy will deepen into bliss. As joy turns into bliss in the presence of emotional silence, ordinary happiness deepens into joy.
15. It is fine to know the goal to which we aspire, but practically we have to know the very next step in our progress, start from where we are, and take that step. And with each advance a new step will appear before us.
16. Habits must be rejected because they are unconscious movements and we seek to make every response fresh, self-aware communion with the Divine. Good habits have the added disadvantage of not even being recognized as such while bad habits stand out painfully in our consciousness. All habits are a leveling off. We must not only dissolve old habits but dissolve the habit of making new habits.
17. Discover the yoga of the receiving of results.
18. When we meet problems in life and work we must immediately seek the yogic solution rather than a life solution.
19. "But he (the seeker) has to take account of the world and its activities, learn what divine truth there may be behind them and reconcile that apparent opposition between the Divine Truth and the manifest creation which is the starting point of most spiritual experience" (Synthesis, p.110).

    We must rediscover the Spirit in life: find the Divine in ourselves, in others, in all things, in our acts and in all worldly activities.

    The greater the depth from which we act, the less human and the more Divine the action.

20. In each of us there is a centre of devotion and an opposing centre of reserve closely related. We must learn to activate the former in order to dissolve the latter.
21. Character is of a very subtle fabric. In order to remove it we need not only the will but a subtle knowledge of character.

    When habit, behaviour, character or personality are lost we lose only the unconscious compulsion of response, not the skill or capacity for any type of movement, which actually become more freely available to us.

13.1.73.

1. We must know the next step: establish some level of consecration 24 hours of the day without break.
2. Objectivity is more valuable than aspiration. We must not feel sorrow for our weaknesses, we must be objective.
3. There are many hidden pockets of reservation, areas of life which refuse to allow the Divine to enter and be made yogic - they prevent the perfect submission. It is very difficult work.
4. The most effective consecration is one which is initiated at the onset of a project and continued till the end even through a long latency period prior to recognized results. Yet if one is prone to anxiety during the latency period it is better merely to forget the consecration and the work until the results manifest. Anxiety tends to interfere with the forces set in motion and brings about the feared possibility.
5. Annoyance is a nervous incapacity to meet certain situations. List sources of annoyance in oneself.
6. Satisfaction is deadwood - it must be activated into aspiration for fulfillment and perfection.
7. All problems can and must be approached for a yogic solution, not a life solution.

16.1.73.

1. One must be without impatience, greed, ambition, or egoistic pride in the acquisition of skills of consecration. One must never strain, but respect the laws of growth, stop short of straining yet also never cease one's effort, though it may for a time drop to a low intensity. Constant progress.
2. We should feel gratitude for anything the Divine may give us, i.e. peace, purity, consecration, subtle perception, but we must ask only for the Divine. Whatever experiences or powers come our way, we must keep always conscious of our goal, the Divine, seek that goal and only that.
3. Gratitude - we could write 200 pages on it because none possess it. If gratitude comes, even a drop of it, you can forget consecration, meditation, etc. - that is complete sadhana by itself.

17.1.73.

Self-observation is psychological awareness. Observation must become neutral, i.e. objective. When the intensity of observation matches the intensity of the reaction being observed, the former overcomes the latter.

18.1.73.

1. Love that exists by itself not aiming at anyone or anything is far more infectious than powers of other description.
2. Anticipation may delay or prevent fulfillment of that which one anticipates.

Knowledge of what proceeds around us in quietude helps things fulfill in time.

20.1.73.

1. We discover a correspondence between inner and outer. We may change the outer by moving inner keys. We may also alter the inner by translating the desired inner change into an outer action, a symbol, for in action all parts of the being participate.

Come to experience yourself at each moment at the tether end of your soul's long evolution in which each new moment provides exactly the circumstances necessary for the next progressive step. Then refer to the Divine within and know what movement is the progressive one. It is possible to know - not with the mind but by always trying to please that something deep in your heart - live to please the Divine within.

By repeating Mother's name and seeing Her image in your heart it is possible to have Her Presence grow very concrete within you. But to keep Her there is impossible - She is so sensitive and will depart at the slightest lapse of consciousness.

2. When someone is in need of help it is best never to extend human emotion or sympathy or involvement for this movement prevents the Divine help from reaching the person. The person turns to the human nurturance. In these cases one must "be aloof" and if possible give impersonally the physical help required but no emotion. One may also give of the neutral Divine Love from deep within for that is Mother and no human being.
3. A good rule in trying to reach another is try to touch them one level in their being above where the problem lies.
4. Establish one activity each day in which one repeats Mother's name and images her in the heart. Note the effects. Gradually spread it to other activities.
5. Observe. Observe. Observe. Note all the activities of the day which are not under Divine influence or Light, not consecrated. Each week try to bring one more of them over to Truth.

28.1.73.

1. Let us start by simply observing every movement of our life and see the 5% which is yoga, let us know our present life as much as possible. Then after about a week we can start bringing more and more activities under yogic control and in 2 or 3 months all but about 10% or 20% will be done. Then the true yoga begins - we must begin to exercise our will and deny ourselves.
2. If one feels embarrassed by the Divine's gestures it means one isn't large enough to accept the intensity of the response. One may become fit by cultivating Gratitude. Gratitude issues from the vastness of the soul and it is wide enough to accept any response without it spilling over.
3. The communication from being to being is very refined and subtle - any stress, display, emphasis, is offensive.
4. One must treasure the consciousness received in meditation or Darshan and guard it against any exposure to lower atmosphere except when absolutely necessary for serving the Divine. The gifts are easily lost in the presence of any grossness. And in truth one's whole life should be purified from all that offends the consciousness.
5. One must develop a refined and subtle knowledge of oneself - strengths and weaknesses - and apply it at each moment to provide conditions most conducive to progress. All can be self-learned in this yoga.
6. When experiences open suddenly there is no danger as you are surrounded by the Grace, but most often it either produces illness or it is lost permanently. Only a refined knowledge can know how to accept and preserve it.
7. To feel gratitude at every moment, for everything that happens, for each action one completes - even if only as a mental remembrance.

1.2.73.

1. Outsiders coming to see you is a sign that your aspiration is growing stronger and drawing more people into your sphere. If it were not so, all the invitations you extend would go unanswered.
2. When visitors come, our old human consciousness (99%) springs forward. More and more we must learn to bifurcate the consciousness and be poised in the soul.
3. It is admissible to "come down" to another's level to meet him in order to make communication possible. It is inadmissible to justify social custom for its own sake and then "come down". It must be a conscious sacrifice to the Divine in him, not to the external being. To submit to a lower consciousness is a great wrong.
4. We have two tendencies: to want to please the other and to want to teach the other. Both are wrong. But in either case, if one can be detached and poised behind, our impersonal attempts to please and to teach will be more effective. It is always a question of contacting and serving the Divine in others by being poised in our own soul.
5. We may speak of other people's ignorance or weakness in order to instruct, but we must never do so if the slightest enjoyment arises from doing it.
6. In informing others, we must be detached from all need or desire to convince or inform, responsive to the "actual depth" of enquiry (if we meet a person's depth accurately and satisfactorily, greater enthusiasm and enquiry will issue of themselves), and compromise our presentation to suit their present level of understanding. It must be done only in response to the soul call from another, never by our impulse or initiative. It is a question of sincerity.
7. Most important we must realize it is not us but the Force, Mother, who does all and often She works best when we say nothing and let all be done beneath the surface. Only when questions arise are answers required or beneficial.
8. One can move people inwardly by a strong will. Instead of seeking them they will come to you.
9. Objectivity is better than self-condemnation. If we can be sorry for our sins and weaknesses, we are also capable of pride and self-satisfaction for our capacities, right movements and strengths. Rather, cultivate objectivity, equality, gratitude.

6.2.73.

Let us follow two processes:

1. Observe and know ourselves.
2. Seek confirmation by life's reactions to us. For what we are has effects in life over which we have no control - this is discovering yoga in life.

8.2.73.

1. We can detach ourselves from our reactions and reject them. We can consecrate our reactions. We can also practice the discipline of reversing them by rising above or going within the negative form and discovering its divine counterpart. Sexual excitement can be sublimated to work for the Divine. Desire can be converted into aspiration.
2. The only reaction that is almost impossible to reverse is one of tamasic dullness or fatigue. This one must be prevented by not allowing any part of the being to accept it, by rejecting it before it gets a foothold. Once entered, it drains the will and strength to combat it, and one must wait with a vigilant quiet aspiration. A truly sincere aspiration can greatly shorten its stay and meanwhile one can observe those parts of the being which have called it in and want it to stay.
3. For visitors: Their consciousness is lower than ours and by entering into relation with them when thinking of them or them thinking of us, when sending or receiving correspondence, when meeting in person - always there will be a significant drainage, lowering of consciousness, dulling - it is always a step or more away from Mother's consciousness. We may react to these situations in three ways:
   1. Our old human consciousness may arise and become involved - feel a slight joy or a normal impulse of anger, etc. Any of these immediately put us fully on the lower level and maximize the suffering.
   2. We may defend ourselves by physical or psychological withdrawal, mental aloofness, emotional neutrality, indifference - these are human mechanisms which can prevent the lowering of consciousness and leave things as they were.
   3. The more affirmative and progressive method is to neither react with the ego or withdraw but to accept all that comes and all our reactions and consecrate them to the Divine (to work through). This method sacrifices some of the safety of defense and allows a lowering of consciousness by our entering into relation and reacting, but it also allows us to work on many elements of our own being and opens the way for great progress.

      It is actually the general method of the entire yoga: neither to withdraw nor remain human but to use each contact of life as a means for progress by discovering a greater spiritual response to life's touches. In this way, all life becomes yoga.

10.2.73.

1. The most important discipline of your sadhana is not to overstrain. Greed for food is alright - it can only hurt the body, but greed for spiritual things is very bad. Aspiration must be purified - now we are 100% impure. When you are pure you can strain all you like, for purity is infinite and can hold any intensity.
2. Try concentrating alternately or simultaneously above the head and behind the heart where the two meet which is at the psychic centre.

11.2.73.

1. When we want to be appreciated for what we do, if we delight in recognition, however subtly - then our action is no longer an offering to the Divine but rather to the ego and manifests this characteristic attachment to the fruits of our work.
2. Expectation (e.g. of what may happen, of what we may one day do or be) is an attachment in the mind which hinders the Divine working. We must go behind the thought to the light-consciousness at its source and detaching it, turn expectancy into aspiration.
3. Any form of delight in things, persons, events for their own sake is a short circuit which bars us from the Divine. When we love or feel joy, we must always know it is the Divine we love, it is the Divine that is our joy. We are spread out in positive and negative attachment to a million things. We must withdraw all of these or go beyond and within all so as to be attached to only the Divine.

   We can aid this movement by feeling gratitude to the Divine for all that we experience.

4. One can progress through consciousness (i.e. by confronting some element and rejecting or purifying it simply by calling in the higher light or force to act upon it in meditation, by detachment) or by imagination (i.e. working through mentally) or by experience (i.e. working through by a single life occurrence) or by work. We can observe which parts of us can progress by which means. In some areas we require the repeated application of physical activity, work, to reach a progress. In others a single experience of a kind will be sufficient (once we recognize such an area, the experience comes very shortly). In others imagining it is sufficient. And in some the progress can be made purely in consciousness. These higher methods can only be effective if the area has already been worked through on lower levels in this or previous births. Progress by consciousness, where possible, greatly reduces the time and energy required for a progress and a resort to lower means in these cases is an error detrimental to sadhana.
5. In some areas we can note having repeatedly had the same experience in life - the same suffering from the same action. These are areas in which the work level is necessary until we recognize the lesson. Then we can attempt to deal with the elements on a more subtle, less material level.
6. We may feel joy and be confronted with a situation where a social response of sorrow is appropriate, e.g. someone breaks a leg. If we attempt to feel sorrow, it is a false movement. But we may retain our joy inside yet realize the way to best serve the Divine, not just the person, is by an outward expression of concern. If we do this without attempting to distort our own inner happiness we will be able to genuinely help the other person.
7. Indian scripture speaks of three ways of receiving higher consciousness: mantras, crystals, medicines. Our resort to medicine should not be out of superstition. They are a means of conveying higher consciousness to the body because of and to the extent of its faith in them - and it is far better to use them than allow the lower consciousness inherent in a disease to remain.
8. Observe the place of sex, power and money in your being. Always at least one will have a marked hold. Often they exist very subtly. We can trace out the strands of attachment to each.
   

   Sex:

   can express subtly as enjoying women's company or their clothes or their aesthesis or voice-tone or passivity or weakness.

   Money:

   expresses subtly as a respect for the wealthy, a refusal to handle money, a dislike for wealth or expensive things, a desire to give money to the Divine.

   Power:

   expresses subtly as a desire to be appreciated or respected, pride, vanity, ambition (spiritual or otherwise), a desire to be subordinate.

9. When we go to see Mother we can understand that She has provided for all the elements in our life which aid our progress and also those that seem to most hinder it. She has arranged everything.
10. When we cut a strand of mental attachment - opinion, attitude, idea and offer the light to the Divine, it is surrender.

    When we sever a single emotional bond and direct that energy towards Mother, it is devotion.

    When we cut a desire or vital impulse and offer the energy upwards, it is adoration.

11. Immaturity in the

    a.	vital	is crude and uncultured behaviour,
    b.	heart	is hardness and insensitivity,
    c.	mind	is narrowness and rigidity.

12.2.73.

1. Aspiration is a discipline complementary to consecration, concentration, etc. Every moment is an opportunity to release some new spark of aspiration.
2. In work aspiration can be organized. If we stand back detached from the work even 10% we can observe and release new aspiration just by remembering the work is an offering to Mother or by consecration. By its nature aspiration is contagious and our aspiration spreads to others but also their aspiration will in turn supplement our own. We can link ourselves with the aspiration in those we work with, in the objects we use and thereby increase our own.
3. Besides work there are many free hours of the day, unprogrammed - waiting, traveling, resting - it is in these that our consciousness reveals its low points, weaknesses, dullness, inertia. We must spark aspiration in these hours as well, bring them under yogic influence, bring the Divine into them.
4. Every person has aspiration at some level, it is the element which leads his evolution whatever its stage. It may be expressed as a skill or perfection in work, a friendliness to others, an inquisitiveness or interest, etc. In each person we meet we can spark and uplift their aspiration as well as our own by taking some interest in them when they express this positive movement and remaining indifferent and detached when other movements arise.

   Trying to share our aspiration dilutes it. But aligning our own with that in the world around us releases it in greater measure for all.

13.2.73.

1. Aspiration approaches perfection in the measure that it combines an intense all-encompassing concentration of all the energies of the being on that which is truer and greater and higher than itself with a deep motionless purity and vast peace as a background. True aspiration is the experience of the Divine Creative Will-Force-Strength flowing on the stable field of immutable Silence.
2. Aspiration gives itself and asks nothing in return. It brings a sense of fullness, of plenitude.

15.2.73.

1. Social obligation and bondage must be completely eliminated so that one relates to, helps, feels gratitude to Mother in other people. One may give freely of what one has received only there must be no trace of egoism - the need or desire to give, and no attachment even when giving human affection. Only then is nothing lost to oneself and maximum gained by the other.
2. Any impurity or wrong movement is alright and should not concern us so long as we don't try to hide it or justify it - we must be impersonal and objective. Sorrow is as inappropriate as joy in the wrong movement.
3. Happiness must not lead to satisfaction but to aspiration for greater joy.
4. To discover the Spirit in Life: it is not a mere mental formula to remind us that the Divine is in all or that our outer life is an expression of our inner or that all life is yoga. It is a call to adventure. Every moment the mind can be alert consciously expecting to see Mother manifest in people, things, events. Every instant the heart can be open and anxious to feel Her near and guiding and protecting and be grateful for all Her gifts.

12.3.73.

Unconditional surrender can be made only from a position of perfect strength which surrenders out of joy or love.

22.3.73.

1. If we can write and speak what others want to hear rather than what we want to tell or teach them, this is real self-abnegation, real self-giving.
2. The truest way to happiness is by making others happy. We must forget ourselves and stop taking ourselves seriously.
3. People are rarely inspired by mental ideas - it is usually either the personality of the speaker or the touching of inspiration in the vital mind which leads to application of new mental ideas. We must communicate inspiration with our ideals or they fall flat and remain unimplemented.

24.3.73.

All divine qualities expand by utilization. Human qualities diminish. Resources used for service of the Divine expand by use, when used for egoistic expansion they are limited by the limited consciousness they are related to.

30.3.73.

1. To follow all the physical rules Mother has laid down for life as sadhaks is yoga in itself - it is not possible! Select a few and experiment.
2. The human will is nature's most evolved instrument. The Divine responds to all acts of will - all promises kept to social convention and others, to the Divine, and most of all, to oneself.

2.4.73.

We must see each person as a being in evolution rather than a mere limited personality and view all their strengths and weaknesses in the light of that ultimate utility, understanding the value that they play for one's present growth. Only after that full appreciation and impartial acceptance can we consider trying to change or improve someone.

11.4.73.

We must recognize the spiritual-evolutionary necessity, usefulness, positive value of each man's weaknesses as counterparts to his strengths, actually allowing his strength its widest fullest development. We must first recognize and accept this truth in ourselves and then in others. And in action we must learn to give room and space for the play of these weaknesses, only preventing it when there is clear indication that it cannot be allowed in our own work, otherwise not interfering at all. To try to hinder the expression of his weakness is to endanger the balance and natural progression of his growth.

6.10.73.

1. I have denied myself every freedom and given it away to others and so I have functionally gained the maximum of freedom.
2. Love and responsibility are coterminous.
3. When you withdraw an opinion or judgment, a fresh area is opened for the higher consciousness to enter and work.
4. We can do anything if we take the decision. The higher consciousness works through our freewill.
5. Work is a source for the creation of new consciousness. Work creates its own opportunities and attracts the necessary resources.

10.10.73.

1. When you have once built something by relying on a higher principle, e.g. freedom rather than authority, if a crisis comes and you fall back on the lower principle, then the entire edifice is undermined and difficult to reconstruct.
2. Disinherit the mind.
3. Hang in mid-air without support.
4. I paid the full homage that should be paid to the tradition.
5. Fearlessness is the basis of any free conscious act. Fear is the basis of any conditioned act.

12.10.73.

1. The essential key to creating a successful institution is the prior establishment of well-trained tiers of hierarchy.
2. Every obstacle and resistance that comes to us from outside expands the boundaries of our work, only that in the meanwhile we have to bear their weight.

13.10.73.

1. When we have taken initiative to offer some benefit to a man and he refuses or cancels it for some reason, the rule is we must not renew the offer unless he takes the initiative to ask.
2. Love, affection, gratitude, recognition of a service rendered are not normal human behaviour. At the least they are a sign of culture and are to be highly regarded.

14.10.73.

1. Any endowment - health, wealth, intelligence, culture, even mere social culture - should be valued. It is a positive element and can be made the focal point for further growth.
2. In the West the institution is replacing the family as the basic economic, social and psychological unit.

16.10.73.

1. We must agree to make life response the judge of our actions.
2. People love to be disciplined. If you first give the knowledge, they love to be disciplined. If you don't give the knowledge, then it becomes coercion.
3. The mental will must be given complete freedom. Not just freedom to act according to our understanding but real freedom without expectation. And that freedom will never be misused. But the child can't be dull otherwise complete mental freedom shouldn't be given. The vital will must be disciplined by the mental, not given freedom. Still there is a mental part of the vital that can be given limited freedom and can learn to discipline the vital itself.
4. Will develops by being exercised, if it is allowed to exert itself. But we constantly cripple it by "Don't do this or that".
5. There is a fine line between freedom and license, knowing when allowance turns into indulgence and becomes a habit. It requires knowledge.

11.11.73.

1. It isn't enough to understand or tolerate human nature, one must feel privileged to work within it for its change. This is the level where Spirit is now forging ahead.
2. There is no movement we need initiate, no institution we need found. All is happening of itself and will happen with or without us. Only we are offered the opportunity to identify with the adventure and grow with it if we so choose.

12.11.73.

1. Long ago I asked myself, "Is it right to love selfishness, is it right to love meanness? If it is wrong to exploit others, is it not equally wrong to allow oneself to be exploited by others?" I read Christ and Buddha, none of the philosophers gave me an answer. Russell said sacrifice could not be a universal law because man is not universal but individual and egoistic, he could not be the recipient of a universal sacrifice. Russell was right as far as he went. For it is not man who is to receive the sacrifice, but the Lord seated in the heart of every man.
2. If one wants to find kindness, affection, generosity in the world, he can give them to other people. But he mustn't expect others to give them to him or to appreciate what he gives.
3. The difference between men is very small. Scratch any man's surface and he is little more than an animal. All that is there in the lowest man is there in everyone.
4. . Work for the Divine is its own reward, the only fruit we should ask for.

21.11.73.

A person can only grow in freedom. Compulsion brings only submission.

22.11.73.

1. A man can often best be helped by one who is just one step above him. Such a man can better identify with him and his problem and take interest. If there is too large a gap, communication is difficult and besides it is a poor utilization of the higher consciousness.
2. Most men aren't even aware when someone saves their life. Then where is the question of gratitude?

27.11.73.

1. I relate to each man as he presents himself to me. But I try to appeal to him at one level above his present one and encourage him to rise there.
2. One must strive to see the good in any man, the strong quality amidst weakness, the virtue hidden by darkness, even the value of his faults. It is not a general faith or blind goodwill but a clear vision and a love of what one sees. So also one should recognize the falsehood in man in all its cloaks and depths, despite all its shams and pretenses.

14.12.73.

1. You cannot help a human being and you should not try. The only thing possible is to serve the divine element in him. If he has an aspiration and exerts his will, you can help him and give him strength.
2. I have found that life always gives me what I deserve and others what they deserve. If I can't give to someone I don't feel bad; you can't give more than a man deserves. And so also when something doesn't come to me, that way I have found the Divine in life. I call it life-response. And similarly you can't deprive someone of what they deserve, always life will find a way to give it.
3. You can die for a man a thousand times and he is capable of ignoring you or forgetting you. So too man can give himself completely for a small thing, happily die for a little thing. Between the two lies the spectrum of human behaviour.

15.12.73.

Gratitude is the soul's essential response to all experience, for it has taken all things on itself in order to progress. If one can put forth the response of gratitude to all circumstances then the need for prolonged or repeated trails is eliminated and life quickly responds by removing the obstacles and bringing better conditions. Gratitude is the one poise which is never satisfied or filled. It keeps on growing in wideness and intensity. It is an emotion which opens one fully to the Grace and makes for constant growth.

13.12.73.

I am willing to sacrifice all if only it is received. But if you give a mountain and a man only receives a few inches, then it is wrong to give like that.

6.1.74.

No matter what the situation if you rely on the fact that you represent Mother's consciousness, you will be at your maximum. If you feel socially and mentally ill-equipped and accept that level of validity, others will react to you at that level. Always you represent the higher consciousness and it is for others to serve that regardless of outer circumstances.

21.1.74.

1. It is far easier to give than to receive. Very few people can happily receive from others.
2. To identify with another, to relate to him on his own mental, emotional, social level and to do so joyously - this is true self-giving. By it one can create a centre of consciousness in another which becomes self-perpetuating. This, the Divine has done coming to earth and man so as to awaken them to their Divinity.

22.1.74.

Every man is almost entirely driven by animal passions. When man seeks to become civilized his first tendency is to change his outward behaviour so as to restrain the expression of the inner animal. He hides his basic nature behind a cloak of formality. Later he hides it even from his own conscious self by repression. But still the animal is predominant. True culture is not formality. It is a partial change of nature so that the basic drives are channeled through higher and higher patterns of behaviour, refined in their expression, disciplined by conscious will into growth and self-giving. Yoga begins only after man has become fully human - cultured. Yoga is not a sublimation of the animal nature but a transformation of its very basis.

28.1.74.

1. Psychological growth can be encouraged by directing one to areas of activity which touch off reaction and asking them to act. This automatically brings up the complex which is overcome by completing the act. Do what is most difficult.
2. A true relationship begins where talking, understanding, feeling, reacting end. The first step is to identify with the other in consciousness. Identification in mind, heart, life are secondary. Human beings cannot accept real relationship nor can they give it. For that one must be more than human.

30.1.74.

1. Until we have attained to the highest achievements of the old world we cannot rightly think of discarding its methods. When we have attained that perfection we can discard and go beyond.
2. Our aim is to establish an institution which recognizes in its functioning the Divinity of man, the society, all materials and its own collective being.
3. Love without power is unable to act effectively. One must be capable of "loving violence".

7.2.74.

1. The best relation is to show a true sincere kindness and interest which never flags and which cares for every detail no matter how small. But it must be a kindness coupled with strength. If weakness comes even in small measure it leads to exploitation by others. Strength without kindness will lead you to be cruel or exploit others.
2. Build your whole day around a centre or spot of consciousness. Try to contact and live in that centre for a minute, then two, five, ten minutes, etc. The rest of the day refer to that centre, live around it.
3. Everyone comes to us because we have some similar quality in ourselves. We can best work on others through the common point.
4. If you give a small freedom you must be sure the recipients are mature enough not to turn it to license. And be aware that it is a movement which will not stop exactly where you wish but will extend itself further.
5. Judgment is a capacity or skill which can be learned or developed. Its true basis is detachment.

8.2.74.

1. I am an iconoclast who breaks all tradition and convention by following it through to its end. I tell a son to please his father, a husband to reunite with his wife, I accept people's anger and moods - until they exhaust themselves and want no more of it.
2. I never withdraw from a person or life situation for it is the Divine I seek in that thing and only when life withdraws it do I accept.
3. Identify oneself with the ideal movement and consciousness of spiritual world unity. Examine one's personality and life in the light of the ideal. Imagine one were asked to lead the world. See how your thoughts, emotions, activities are in harmony or contradiction to the ideal and the task of leading it in consciousness. Consecrate all one's daily life to the ideal. It is not as high as consecration to the Divine but it is very powerful and will illumine personal areas for work.You will see life responding on large scale to your identification, you will be in connection with the movement.
4. Enthusiastic interest and unmotivated goodwill are the keys to stimulating people to respond.
5. All growth involves a stress which may be concealed beneath the momentary expansion and joy, but usually asserts itself later as an element of disharmony or maladjustment. Growth and harmony must move in balance.

9.2.74.

1. You must meet people at their level. In practice it means to cater to their needs, desires and understandings as they are, to accept them completely as they are, to minister even to their subconscious propensities and those they hide with shame. You must do so until they outgrow them or discard them out of shame.
2. What matters is not the greatness or weakness of your powers and personality but the totality and completeness of your Surrender at the moment. In the degree of your surrender, you are Divine.

14.2.74.

1. Experiments:
   • Refer all activities of the day to a particular centre so as to establish a point of meditation that is awake throughout the day.
   • Try to see in at least one act each day that the entire personality expresses and can be seen there in the decision and its execution.
   • Will of thought - Every act has a mental part. Three times a day examine the thought element breaking it into its many parts and tracing each back until it turns into light. It is similar to psychological tracing but here each word is examined for its root source. This is self-enquiry.
   • Will of consciousness - an effort of will is required to maintain quietude in the parts of the being allowing the process of meditation to continue - A will of concentration or receptivity etc. Try to increase the period of effort by even one minute a week. When it becomes complete, meditation is 24 hours.
2. When the true knowledge comes forward you will be afraid to follow it, hesitant to trust in its certitude.
3. Read Sri Aurobindo's letter in On Himself where he learned to silence the mind by rejecting thoughts before they could enter. Offer gratitude for his experience, imagine his figure in the mind and attempt his effort.
4. Examine the gap between your life and your faith. Understand how it can be bridged.
5. When a person is given freedom in its true sense he undergoes maximum growth. In freedom the full potentialities of human nature reveal themselves. The very best of men will starve you and exploit you and ask what more you can do for them. One can give freedom in the measure of one's strength to undergo the ordeal. By giving freedom to another man's negative capacities those capacities are mastered in oneself. I have given freedom to everyone in full measure. Freedom means to cater to their interests and desires, conscious or subconscious, to accept all behaviour without threat, condemnation or withdrawal, to love in and in spite of and offer gratitude for, all that happens.

17.2.74.

1. Whatever we do we must move towards the higher consciousness. When life circumstances present us with activities of a lower quality we must use the opportunity to rid ourselves of the inner part which corresponds with the outer event, consecrate the activity in ourselves and use the circumstance for an inner progress. The sign of our success will be when the circumstances no longer present themselves to us or compel our attention.
2. The basis of all consecration is awareness. Mental consecration of our thought presupposes and is limited by our awareness of the various layers of thought activity and the diverse expressions of the mental will. Consecration proceeds by a gathering of the will at a concentrated point.
3. The capacity to meditate successfully with another proceeds from a centre of selflessness in ourselves.
4. . The force of meditation often settles on the psychological fabric of our complexes, tensions, etc. and acts to increase them until they burst and pass away.
5. The principle I ask you to follow is that of maximum utilization of all will and energies for the full development of your yogic potentialities. This process is limited by the point where strain occurs. Strain is greed. You should never strain.
6. No good is one-sided. It is always possible to show an ideal to which both sides can relate and by which they can benefit.
7. Where man refuses to act out of idealism, he can be made to act out of self-interest.
8. Growth can occur only in conditions of freedom. But in human relationship which is primarily on the vital level, freedom almost always leads to exploitation, greed and license. The energy given is used to foster all the lower tendencies in man rather than to rise above them. Gradually these lower movements exhaust themselves, the lower levels are saturated and man is ready to rise to the level where human affection can be accepted and returned. The only exception is when freedom does not lead to license but is used solely for upward growth - this probably never happens.Until the vital level is exhausted, man is only capable of receiving affection as a freedom for his own aggrandizement and self-assertion.To receive and give affection one must be more than human.

18.2.74.

1. One should not allow common sense arrangements to be disturbed due to personal demand or fancy.
2. Knowledge of human nature is a great asset but it is not necessary if one can have complete trust in Mother. If you don't know, you'll make lots of mistakes but always life will give you what you need.
3. You should not try to satisfy anyone.You should do what is right.

19.2.74.

1. The essential basis of all else is to bring the entire day under a level of general consecration of whatever depth or intensity. It means the effort then in all parts is integrated. Try to consecrate every thought, feeling, movement for one hour a day. Imagine Mother within you and these elements flowing by like a March Past.
2. Refer to the list of human qualities in the Thesaurus. Understand each one as it exists in you and see what its higher conscious counterpart would be.
3. Attention to another cannot be complete without conscious neglect. Kindness must cease to express where indulgence begins.
4. The higher consciousness is always right. Poise yourself constantly there and as a policy feel always that you are right, in the right, more knowledgeable. Feel you are the leader of the entire earth's evolution. Life will support your claim. There is a truth in this stance. Every man is a point of evolving consciousness and in the sphere of his own life and activity he is the leader. It is right for everyone to serve you because it is the higher consciousness they serve.
5. You can create a harmony between any two people to whom you are related. Find the part in you to which each one is related and form a harmony between the two parts.
6. If a man and woman can relate themselves in their complementary parts in all levels of the being rather than in the parts that conflict, then human relationship is the next closest approach to a direct relationship with the Divine.
7. If ever indecision comes, consecrate every thought and feeling for about five minutes letting each one go by, let the mind fall silent. A decision will begin to clarify. Even if it does not, you can confidently act on whatever impulse predominates.
8. You can give complete freedom to another so long as life supports the flow of consciousness in that direction. When life breaks the movement indicating the person can receive no more, then the reverse movement begins. Then one cannot and should not indulge further. The other becomes your slave in consciousness. Even then an indulgence of a surface layer of negative relation is permissible.
9. Each trait inherited from the community can be traced back and examined to see the psychological necessity or conditions which fostered its formations but which no longer exist. For each such point one can replace reliance on the trait with a reliance on the Divine by consecration.
10. When one is moving from a level to the next higher there is almost always a period of loose flux. A corresponding instability or unbalance is present in the movements of life around one. Through this flux negative forces try to upset the ascent. That is why at such times one should not act or be strong with opposition but be flexible and give way until one is secure at the new level.
11. A conscious indulgence is a conscious descent to a lower consciousness, darker and more chaotic. That choice is reflected by a movement of chaos in life, a breakdown of order and functioning.

12. An institution must be integrated in its functioning with the goals and policies it wishes to implement and the level of life in which they are to be applied.

    In India the institutions have never been so integrated, for they function on a mental level using the vehicle of law to deal with a vital level of humanity which does not recognize or respond to the legal codes. They must be restructured so as to be integrated with the level of motivation (incentive) the man can respond to and the level of obligation, force, rule which he recognizes in his own life. They must create and develop a felt need in the man for their services (economic, educational, developmental, etc.).

13. One can accept the unconscious meanness of others but when someone initiates conscious hostility it is better to break the association unless one wishes to accept the behaviour for one's own personal growth.
14. .
    The soul seeks to grow in consciousness through experience in life. It takes upon itself the full cloak of human nature, a particular typal and individual character, a psychological fabric and an outer behaviour. Normally, we judge and react to a person on the level of behaviour. In some cases we understand the psychological element behind and give preference to that, e.g. we sense the mercenary motive behind a favour or the need for attention behind a fit of anger. Also it is possible to see character and nature expressing through the psychological and behavioural front and then the most appropriate response may be to these deeper levels. Sometimes the response will be in direct opposition to that which is indicated by the social situation or one's psychological understanding.

15. "Sow an act you reap a habit;
    
    Sow a habit you reap a character;
    
    Sow a character you reap a destiny" - (MacDougall)
    
    

16. Sri Aurobindo says lying is a basic characteristic of human nature.
17. The simplest form of human existence is an act. An unfamiliar act is fresh. With repetition the act forms into a physical habit. The habit has a skill component and a psychological component, the latter composed of one's inner experience, feeling, attitude towards the act and one's awareness of the social reaction of others to the action. The skill part has physical and memory elements. When a habit is repeated in various life circumstances it is called a behaviour - this is the psychological component of personality. The behaviour is rooted in memory. When a behaviour pattern has the full conviction of the mind behind it, we can speak of character. It is this level which is normally inaccessible to change in life but not in yoga. The character has a social component expressed in relation with others and a component which is present even in isolation from society, called individuality. Character is the product of social, psychological and physical inheritance as well as the previous development of the incarnating soul. Beyond is the being, the qualities expressing through human nature in this lifetime.
18. When we take interest in another person our aspiration awakens his aspiration.
19. Note that certain cloths, rooms, telephones, doors, people, objects, etc. are associated with positive and negative movements. Associate more with the positive ones.
20. See the movement of world unity and consecrate it. Every time you see a movement towards unity consecrate it. Do the work of unity in consciousness by consecration. Trace the trends mentioned in Ideal of Human Unity. Anticipate their future course and consecrate them.
    Begin by identifying in imagination with earth and evolving human consciousness moving towards unity. Try to move the identification to the level of consciousness.See each event in the light of unity and consecrate it at the level of consciousness.

23.2.74.

1. Faith in anything is a greater power than any human capacity. For it taps universal forces which take up where man exhausts. Faith in Mother taps the Divine forces.
2. One must know clearly the boundary line between compassionate goodwill and concern for another and the weakness which stems from a positive dislike for bad feelings and unhappiness. To really make another happy one must be strong enough to allow them to be unhappy in the measure their nature requires. One must be capable of outward indifference and neglect if necessary.

24.2.74.

1. There is one basic practice which includes all I have spoken to you. Before every act if you can retreat from surface mind and heart and retire into the sanctum sanctorum and remain there until you are released. Then act without concern, for your action will be guided.
2. It is foolish to expect to find someone who can love. If you want, you can try to love, be kind, be generous in yourself. But it is too much to expect that of others. It is an immaturity I suffered from for a long time.

25.2.74.

99% of man's personality fabric is composed of a network of vital preoccupations - a few habitual modes of behaviour organized into a personality, a small number of engrossing objects of concern and some characteristic quality of action. These areas of habit successfully prevent any freshness from entering the dead-wood of routine.

At certain times such as before travel, large social occasions, etc. this fabric emerges in full clarity. It is almost an irresistible force of habit. At these moments it can be clearly observed, understood and initial efforts taken to dissolve it.

In man's existence everything - even human affection - is organized at the level of dead habit. Progress comes only in the measure that some small fresh area can be created in the mass of routine. Even a small centre of freshness acts to attract huge forces for change.

26.2.74.

1. Mother may support ambition and work through it in a man but She never satisfies wishful thinking.
2. Many yogas which take up a single part of the being and discard the rest can function at 10% discipline. But this yoga takes up the whole being and to try and function at 100% discipline would be such a severe exercise that after a month or a few years the man would quit and leave either physically or psychologically in reaction. Here 100% discipline means what a man can achieve at a given moment without disregard for his nature though it may be only 10% of actual full capacity for effort. If he exhausts this limited discipline Mother will act and do the rest. One must know what a man can stand and demand 100% in that area no matter how small. In other areas you must be patient, indulgent and give way when necessary.
3. As power increases so must humility. Never expect any recognition or return for what is given through you. It is enough you give and always the return will be less, it is the law. You must not feel condescension or even be conscious of giving.
4. Loneliness, emptiness, boredom can be cured. There are in the heart emotions directed toward specific objects. There is also a deeper emotional centre from which feelings can flow out to anyone. The vital can be purified and one can learn to give of himself from these higher and deeper centres.
5. .

Soul	← →	Incarnating psychic being partially evolved		← →	Robe of basic human nature (common pool)		← →
Individual character type for expression of past evolution through present heredity				← →	Social character influenced by environment and cultural patterns		← →
Psychological fabric of personality			← →	Behavioural habits		← →	acts

WRITTEN NOTES

Nov. 27, 1972

1. A beginning demands a drastic change. All of us who have come here have once made such a change. The truth about it is, such a change is called for each time one moves upwards. The siddhi begins when the Presence takes over.
2. Aspiration, meditation, etc., i.e. all spiritual discipline renders the person, the Personality so far built, spiritual. The Personality itself is built in action, in the field of life. True spiritual discipline increases the personality content but that is secondary. That is why action in life is essential till the necessary experience is drawn.
3. Each individual who attains to something of the spirit, will, in that respect be of the same dimensions of the master of that attainment. The master's greatness lies in the fact that he is the path-hewer. As each radio set is as brilliant as the one Marconi made, each time siddhi in the disciples will be the same as in the Master.
4. Yoga is effective in that part of the being where one is the master of his consciousness, as yoga is a conscious direction to the consciousness. In proportion, one must have under his control the life around him.
5. As the best moment of the day indicates the maximum possibility in one's reach, the worst moment of the day indicates the depth to which one can slide down. One can observe that this low depth often determines the quality of one's work or achievement.
6. A single act of indulgence, say the indulgence of the urge to talk, will undo all the achievements till then, bringing the level of consciousness to the status of that indulgence. One has to begin again. A lapse permits recovery whereas a conscious indulgence, however small, actively undoes the attainments.
7. An opinion, good or bad, is a WALL beyond which one can progress only by shedding the opinion.
8. Reverse the outgoing movements and go inward. Energy gathers. It is a better condition for doing yoga.Silence is better than any thought because the same thought is contained in pregnant potential form inside that Silence. It is best if the same thought is urged to expression by the pregnant Silence.
9. Stop forming opinions since even the previous opinions are to be shed. Sometime or other one has to start. Without stopping the present opinion formation there can be no beginning of opinion shedding. The same applies to all active mental, vital functions and formations.

10. What one really is inside expresses itself in some measure in outer activities. It cannot but express; it cannot express if there is no field of activity. In so expressing, it uses a faculty of the temperament. In time there forms a habit or pattern and this temperament attaches itself to a particular act.

    For yogic conditions, this act, this faculty of temperament, and its deeper base of character are to go, leaving the pure consciousness. If one gets at the act that expresses his disability and detaches himself, he gets the better of it. But he would be master of the situation only when he gets the better of the expressing faculty of temperament.

    There are certain happy inner conditions using similar patterns. It is good to locate them and foster them to have more of the inner felicity well expressed. A question arises: Are we not organizing a habit? though it is a good one? No. The inner felicity while expressing will dissolve the pattern of the habit if the stress is laid on the inner centre instead of relying on the virtue the habit is.

11. What should be moved at a higher level by non-disciples should first be prepared by disciples at a material level in a small way. What Mother's devotees do has a creative character and only they are to initiate and they alone can initiate. Others follow, even if in a big way.
12. Any interest, or worry, it can be observed, occupies the entire consciousness, i.e. we become that interest or that worry. It means our consciousness is of that status or level. the Divine, our interest or aspiration for the Divine, must occupy the consciousness all the time and problems that relate to us must come as means for that consciousness to expand or intensify.
13. Offering is best done by a self-giving consciousness which cannot but given constantly. Otherwise what has been given remains in the memory consciousness, active mental consciousness, passive mental consciousness, subconscious and in the subtle body consciousness. As money represents material consciousness, the corresponding physical consciousness in the body will retain the sense of its possessiveness.
14. Growth takes place at the ends of the plant. Spiritual growth takes place, or begins, only when one's possibilities are exhausted. How can there be growth if the potentials are not exhausted? To serve the Divine one has to exhaust one's physical, physiological, psychological, social, personal, financial, idealistic possibilities.
15. We always react. That is from habit. Human consciousness reacts from the layer of its inheritance. Divine consciousness is fresh and has no such inheritance. It only acts. It constantly grows through action, while human consciousness constantly gets encrusted through reaction.
16. Nature has developed Spirit, wealth, organization, capacity, etc. in different pockets. In the immediate future each of these pockets is to borrow every other aspect from others giving itself to all. That seems to be the way of world unity now.
17. While doing a work we concentrate at the level of its consciousness. This is certainly most desirable, but most difficult. If one accomplishes consecration it is good. It is still better for him to centre himself behind the work consciousness, i.e. in the consciousness of the Divine that envelops the work. There is a relation between the individual divine centre and the work-divine centre. That is the thread one has to get at.
18. If a sadhak erases in himself all that he has inherited from family, society, etc., Mother's grace will reach through him to all that he has hitherto represented and that entire area will come to Mother.

19. Man's nature expresses itself through mental attitude, emotional temperament, vital impulses and physical activity. It can be seen that life meets him at all these points, only at these points) and takes on itself corresponding hues. The same circumstances react to different persons differently. To convert all life into Yoga, one has to know all the contours of his expressing personality. This can be actively helped if he evaluates himself in the light of life reactions to him. Once this study is accomplished much is done. Next he should make the necessary personal adjustments in the light of what he expects of life. Just at this point, he will find that his reactions to life have been converted into constant observation and study. His own life now admits of being converted into a stream of growth, instead of its being a bundle of reactions.

    Mentally, behaviour meets life ends. Working hard on it one can resolve the behaviour patterns but will be left with a residue of character. When he crosses that stage personality meets him and ahead of it individuality. In this process he has to look into himself to undo the knots inherited from family, community, etc. Similar process is to be accomplished at the feeling, emotion, sentiment level and further on at the vital impulsion level.

    Having based himself to life outside, he will not find corresponding changes in the life contacts. The content of life that meets him would have changed.

    This is best done in the field of work as it presents a texture of multiple character. For sadhaks, each human contact can be seen to be more complex than for others. Outside life is complex, here the individual himself will be a complexity as he carries Mother's force on him.

20. In each act one can discern two parts, one that is consecrated, and the other desire-oriented. To know them as such is a measure of help. Dual personality of routine and real progress. How to reconcile them.
21. To go deep inside: One can have sudden glimpses on the Inside in a deep concentration and have constant recourse to it thereby strengthening the link. Or in surface life the constant idea that everything is divine can be kept up. It gives a gentle but firm grip of the idea of the Divine which gently but surely deepens.
22. That act which exactly expresses the inner status of consciousness must be taken note of, as that is a yogic moment. Normally it will be a culmination of a series of acts. That moment is a real beginning of Yoga.
23. Failure is a result of non-yogic consciousness. Disappointment is a result of faith in oneself. Confusion is the absence of anchorage in consciousness.
24. Each man should choose such activities that would require such an intensity of attention that would overcome his habitual lethargy.
25. Strain of any description indicates greed, fads, limitations.
26. Some want their own ends to be served by yogic practices. This is often carried to ridiculous lengths, e.g. one wants his wife to appreciate him, the other wants his ethical standards to be upheld, the third wants the common man to understand. These are all smaller versions of powerless ego. Nothing to do with yoga. A vain man would receive blows whereas he looks for the fulfillment of his vanity.
27. Failures and Failures:
    • Those that come in answer to one's own character, consciousness.
    • Those that come because of one's associates.
    • Those that come because of the conditions of work.
    • Those that come because of the lack of the ripening of the moment.

    It is one's own sincerity that identifies the right cause. Each failure indicates a certain type of behaviour.

28. Spiritual awareness brings a live relationship with the objects one uses whereas vital attachment brings the contrary.
29. When the mental attitude is right, when aspiration envelops the being, if one moves in work consecrating each item, results follow not after days or hours but instantaneously.
30. Suspicion issues out of doubt which arises out of disbelief. Disbelief is either out of lack of growth into faith or inherited. The former is easy to cure and the latter is a poison.
31. Having read Sri Aurobindo one begins to speak of psychic, inner mind, intuition, etc. in himself. All that he sees is on the very surface. This is the worst example of ego and ignorance.
32. Sometimes people approach the Divine negatively, i.e. build up ways of attack to relate themselves to the Divine.
33. Collection of money for the Divine and its work:
    • It is to win that amount of psychological area for the Divine rule.
    • Each man can collect money in that way which his consciousness represents. Some collect money, some collect people.
    • Money represents not merely a social area but also that area from which the person responds. Behind that lies the area of inherited human consciousness. It ultimately means one representative area of human consciousness developed into a certain mould has yielded to the Divine.
34. Everything we observe in others can safely be presumed to be in us if not in the same layer of manifestation then elsewhere. That knowledge fixes the measure of the homework.
35. Those whom we save betray us - the same attitude is there in us towards the Divine.
36. “I don’t like this”, “I don’t like to be fooled”, “Is this fair?” “Anyway, this is too much”.
    Reactions from: habit
    

    behaviour

    character

    personality

    individuality

    ____________

    nature

37. It is better to make allowance for the insistent part that intervenes in meditation. It is like thirst or any other physical inconvenience.
38. Ethical behaviour is often really a desire to absolve oneself of the same responsibility by advising others. A subtler part is that which makes possible non-ethical consciousness alive under the surface of ethical behaviour. Then it becomes self-deceptive.

39. To accept the Divine one wants a few mental questions to be answered. This is common. When one accepts what he understands, the surrender is to his own understanding, not to the Divine… To accept the Divine whether he understands or not is a surrender to the Divine. That acceptance shows something from behind the mind offering submission.
    
    

    To accept the world and every situation one meets unquestioningly is to surrender to the manifested Divine. Why then does Mother answer questions? She accepts the Divine in the questioner unquestioningly, in spite of his ignorance and offers to meet the ignorance on its own level. Whatever possibilities are brought to her notice, She helps forward.
    
    

    How does one act if he passively accepts whatever comes his way? He drifts? No. To accept means to be equal, not to react, to be ready to do what is indicated. What is to be done depends upon what one is moved to do from inside.

40. 40. To perfect the mental and emotional being so as to pass on to the next higher level. Mind is said to have grown to its limits when it becomes wise, mature and capable of ripe judgment. Really it does so only when it is capable of detachment, objectivity.
    • Looking at each developed part of mind, one can see it has developed to the exclusion of other faculties. This is mind’s nature. These aspects are to be developed, much to the chagrin of the already developed part, e.g. intelligence often develops excluding judgment.
    • Each development in mind calls for greater cooperation from the heart and especially vital impulses. One has to know the correspondences and give the necessary education.
    • An attempt at integrating vital, heart, and mental activities at some level reveals the gaps. Attention is needed there. This attempt can make one see that partial high development is easier than integrated ordinary development. If integrality is achieved LIFE will yield as power attended by quiet emotion, and clear knowledge is released.
    • One with very high mental caliber will be surprised to find that it is not easy to attempt integration at the primary levels of life too!
    • Intelligence understands the presented knowledge; but perception alone understands implied knowledge. Perceptive knowledge carries one to the borders of the inner mind.
    • Wrong suggestions originate but Will intervenes and permits right behaviour only. At the point Will intervenes is our work. It can be taught to intervene earlier, thereby removing wrong suggestions. The above is to attempt purity through mind.
    • Tiers of existence lie one on the other. To cross over to the next higher tier of existence one has to be perfect in the least detail of the present tier.
    • Examining patience, tolerance, etc. one can see sometimes they are behavioural or exercised by the Will or an ingrained habit. Until they obtain as native endowments one has to work. What weaknesses are absent in our general life can be seen when the Divine is in the picture e.g. expectation in life may not be there but it will be there in seeing Mother. Scratch it, it will reveal its nature. It has to be there as aspiration, not expectation.
    • Mind and heart are to be taken out, their present strength in us to be studied and encouraged and their weaknesses eliminated; and other items in life are to be attempted that will strengthen mind and heart. They are not merely to be perfected; but must mature, ripen, become multidimensional and must lose all their innate characteristics, revealing their potentialities for Divine Instrumentation.

41. Symbol (omen) – Symptom

    Consciousness that organizes at any level expresses at every point of existence. At certain points it is easy to observe its nature which we call by the name symbol.

42. Yoga and efficiency:

    At the level each man exists whether he is a trader, criminal, or administrator (or even a man who is lazy according to others) at the level where he has organized his life, looked at from the previous level from which he has evolved into that, MAN is efficient to perfection. We need man to be efficient at the highest human level that extends into yoga. In fact, efficiency is the order into which yogic intensity expresses itself in life.

43. Element of compulsion in Education:

    As one compels oneself by self-discipline, as long as his self includes the family or society it can beneficially compel him. This compulsion is permissible as it comes from his own self, i.e. the self with which he identifies himself.

44. Varieties of writing:

    Writings that inform, elevate, inspire.
    
    

    Why Americans are not able to understand good writings? - The relation of the language to its content; Permissible variation in the reader’s equipment and the impermissible one.

45. Man grows in yoga and we say he must expand in wideness, increase in intensity, acquire so many capacities. There are two aspects to this idea: Yogic consciousness is an organized spiritual plane with many terms of existence. Man, simply by rising to these levels of consciousness enjoys what is there in these planes. Another is that man at each of these planes becomes creative and enriches the plane of consciousness into which he has come. This is like one entering the administration. The set-up has its own power, authority, system which he employs by virtue of his occupying a position. And being a creative administrator he may lay down new patterns of functioning.

46. Habit – channel laid: it can be re-laid.

    Character – Gradient of the soil.

    Personality – Fertility of the soil (made up by nature’s society).

    Individuality – Texture of the soil.

47. One takes to Yoga. That means he functions from a centre where he refuses to consider himself social, domestic or individual. If the Divine accepts this position his colleague will approach him not as a colleague but as a vibration that is evolving. His son will treat him not as a father but as a soul that is aspiring. With the result that all one’s weaknesses will be insistently exposed to the surface and all complaints against others that they have not done their bit will be rendered well.

    One has to look upon oneself as an evolving soul and look at the points at which forces of nature issue and offer it the natural balance it needs. That is why one should see his child as Mother’s child, neighbor as a mere person God-given to cooperate with him in his universal endeavour.

48. Study of economics, industrialization, management and other humanities as strands of the growth of the mental and emotional being.

49. In studying a subject each man, viz. the scholar, politician, the religious man, the thinker, the philosopher satisfies himself that he approaches the subject from all possible angles. True, each man’s point of approach limits the scope of study. This is true of the yogin too in some measure.

    Instead, if one allows the subject to approach him, necessarily it touches him at all points of its existence, allowing little scope for subjectivity. This makes for a greater measure of objectivity even if it is not all. Because, to be objective one need shed the ‘subject’ in himself.

50. Some take the position that they have come to serve the Mother, not others or other things. This is really an act of ignorance or a clever device to cloak one’s lethargy and shirk one’s responsibility. Closely observed, it reveals a subtle pride or ego.

    One is not related to the Mother (after initiation by Her) as he should because of his incapacity to relate to Her or circumstances of life or destiny. One receives fully from a person or circumstances of work to which he is fully related in his active life. In fact, one receives in the measure he is actively related.

    One who works with others (especially those who have a consciousness higher than they have) really receive their all from these ends. It is sincerity to accept this and discover Mother in that context (or person).

51. To convert all life into Yoga, one must know life and yoga comprehensively and KNOW where they MEET.
52. A thesis for the historian: In India nature attempted the most opulent result and worked towards unity which will lead to a higher unit than the nation: A study can be made of how this was attempted at the levels of: political set-up
    

    administration

    psychological substratum

    and the spiritual basis

    
    
53. A thesis in Psychology: Evolution of volition into the human Will. Its role to bring down the Divine Will.
54. To allow oneself to be exploited (especially the higher consciousness in oneself) is the other side of the desire to exploit. Really it is to allow the lower in us to feed on the higher.
55. One who wants to follow this yoga as a true sadhak surrenders the material possessions to the Divine. Later he must start surrendering the mental, vital possessions to the Divine. The latter cannot start unless and until the former is perfected.
56. Studies of Sri Aurobindo’s works and writings and lectures on it, so that one comes into touch with the Presence behind it.
57. A lecture on each soul-attribute realizing each in the emotion and bringing out the clarity of every shade of the emotion.
58. Practice meditation while in the centre of the bazaar.

59. Cruelty, suspicion, stealing, etc. serve as eminent an evolutionary purpose even as meditation or aspiration. Write a treatise and give emotional reality to their knowledge-status.

    Attempt concentration away from a performance of a loud speaker.

60. Nothing happens anywhere isolated: If some great knowledge reveals to someone, it may mean that a widespread readiness is there and at the point of this personality it shows up. This cannot apply to the case where a special divine personality descends upon earth and slowly creates the conditions wherein it can manifest. (A settler walks into the African forests and creates social conditions for which the society is utterly unprepared). Still in a wider context the principle enunciated would hold good.

    That is why when we see symptoms of great change in our work, we are to be aware of a general preparedness all over the nation.

61. If any one human relationship is forged perfectly according to yoga, the sadhak can be said to be poised for launching himself on Yoga. It is so because unless every human contact is made somewhat perfect One cannot really be made perfect.

    Each One relationship, in one sense, abridges all human relationship of the individual.

62. The Divine shows solicitude to the unawakened soul. But the awakened soul has to relate himself to the Divine on his own expecting not even response (even though response will be great).

63. Life as it is lived has a known area where the factors involved are knowable and their play predictable. Persons operating on that level soon gain mastery over the field. Further up there is always another area where factors are not always knowable and persons working in that plane can never hope to gain a certain mastery in their functioning. For example in politics administration belongs to the first category whereas politics to the second; in business, production to the first, marketing to the second. In science too there is always a field like weather where predictability is less.

    The moment a person takes to yoga, he is gently moved from secure, known layers of life to layers where security and mastery are well nigh impossible. In yoga he is to find security only in remembering the Divine, i.e. in Divine Consciousness and in consecrating his energies to it.