Influenced,
yes.
Top
Q.
They will also be helped?
But if they don't
care to be helped! You want to help them despite themselves?
If one aspires, wants the help, even if the opening is
very small, still there is necessarily some opening. But if one doesn't want
to be helped...Or rather, I could say there are people who are sure they don't
need to be helped, they feel that they can help themselves quite well, that
they need no help, that it is they who do the work, they who make the progress,
they who do everything. So they don't want help, they feel no need for it.
Why do you want them to be helped when they don't care for it?
Top
Q.
But you said that even the blind will be obliged to realise it
I
said that it will be visible even to those who are ill-willed is that what
you mean? But that's quite different. When you receive a punch on the nose,
you have to recognise something even though it hasn't helped you!
Top
No. When one recognises this Force...
Yes.
One is bound to be open...
Yes.
So
even one who didn't want to be helped so far, will want it.
Recognise
this Force? Oh! when he has received the punch! (Laughter) Perhaps. It
may happen. Anything can happen.
So,
even one who is now unconscious will open under the blow.
And
then? What is your conclusion? What do you expect to happen?
Top
Q.
That is to say, he will see that it is a miracle.
That he's been
punched? (Laughter) He
won't call that a miracle, he will call it a bad deed. He will say, ``That's
bad luck, it's my unfortunate fate, it is an injustice'', he will say anything
at all, as people are in the habit of saying. But what I have not yet caught is the point of your question.
What are you driving at? You mean the whole world whether it wants it or not,
whether it aspires or not, whether it recognises it or not, will sooner or
later come under the influence of the supramental presence on earth is that
what you mean?
Top
No.
Ah!
what a pity, for that had some meaning. (Laughter) And I would have answered,
``Yes'' and then it would have been over!
No.
Those who are half open...
They
will receive half more than those who are not open at all! (Laughter)
This
manifestation will make them aspire more?
Ah!
that I don't know. It must depend on the case. For each one it will be different.
Is it for yourself you are pleading?
Top
Yes.
Oh!
Oh! You want to know what will happen to you? Set your mind at rest, it will
be quite all right. I could almost say as for the banner of Joan of Arc: ``You
have shared in the labour, you will share in the Glory.'' There then, are
you satisfied?
Top
Yes.
(CWM.
V.8-pp.136-139)
I have
been asked some questions about the film we saw yesterday {An English documentary
on the Buddha: Gautama Buddha.} The first one is to say the least bizarre! I
am giving it to you exactly as it is here. I am asked:
Q.
``Is the real Buddha you know, whom you speak of in Prayers and Meditations,
{Prayers and Meditations, 20 and 21 December 1916.} the same as the one whose
statues are worshipped?''
Statues...there
are thousands of statues of the Buddha. There is the Buddha as he is known
in India, the Buddha known in Ceylon, the Buddha known in Tibet, the Buddha
known in China, in Cambodia, Thailand, Japan and elsewhere. If you are speaking
of the historical fact, I think they would all tell you that it is to the
Gautama Buddha of India they pray, but in fact, each one of these branches
of Buddhism, and many more, has its own conception of the Buddha, and it is
the conception of a godhead which is worshipped in statues, much more than
a divine being, so...If you show me a statue and ask me, ``In this statue
is there the influence or the presence of the Buddha as you know him?'', I
could reply yes or no to you; but when you say ``whose statues are worshipped'',
I cannot answer you, for that depends on what they have drawn into the statue
they worship. Historically, it is always the same name but in fact I don't
know if it is always the same spiritual person! So I cannot answer you. If
you ask me about the statues we saw yesterday...You saw how many there were
and some of them were very, very different, it was a very different Buddha.
There was one which was shown to us very often, and which is quite authentic,
but there were many others which represented at the very least other personalities
of the Buddha. It depends on what you mean; if you mean historically, yes,
they always say it is the Buddha; but each statue is different. So, that's
one question. Now we come to something quite different:
Top
Q.
``In what way can the teaching of the Buddha now be an obstacle or help to humanity
on the path of supramentalisation?''
Everything
that helps humanity to make progress is a help, and all that prevents it from
making progress is an obstacle! In fact, you are asking this because we study
and meditate on the Dhammapada... {For some months, every Friday in the younger
children's class Mother used to read a few verses from the Dhammapada, the
most sacred text of Buddhist Teaching.} Naturally, I took this text because
I consider that at a particular stage of development it can be very useful.
It is a discipline which has been crystallised in certain formulas and if
one uses these formulas profitably, it can be very helpful, otherwise I wouldn't
have taken it. How helpful depends on each one. It depends on whether one
knows how to profit from it or not.
Top
And
then, the last question:
Q.
``Sri Aurobindo has said that the Buddha was an avatar... ''
We have said
this several times already. And then, here it becomes very mysterious:
Q.
``Apart from the teaching of the Buddha, what remains of his personality in
the world?''
{To
the disciple who had asked the question) Why do you make this distinction?
Top
Q.
When he entered into Nirvana, it was said that his teaching would now remain
in the relics.
In
the relics! Well, then that means the two things go together. I don't see
why you separate them. There is something of his influence in his teaching,
naturally! It is the teaching that transmits his influence in the mental field.
His direct action, apart from his teaching, is limited to a very few people
who are very fervent believers and have the power of evocation. Otherwise,
the most important part of his action, almost the whole of his action, is
associated, united, fused with his teaching. It seems difficult to make a
distinction. (After a silence) The forms of Divine Power which have incarnated
in different beings, have incarnated with a specific aim, for a specific action,
at a specific moment of universal development, but essentially they are only
differentiated aspects of the One Being; therefore, it is in the particular
purpose of the action that the difference lies. Otherwise it is always the
same Truth, the same Power, the same eternal Life which manifests in these
forms and creates these forms at a given moment for a specific reason and
a specific aim; this is preserved in history, but eternally they are new forms
which are used for new progress. Old forms can endure as a vibration lasts,
but their purpose historically, it could be said, was momentary, and one form
is replaced by another in order that a new step forward may be taken. The
mistake humanity makes is that it always hangs on to what is behind it and
wants to perpetuate the past indefinitely. These things must be used at the
time when they are useful. For there is a history of {each} individual development;
you may pass through stages in which these disciplines have their momentary
utility, but when you have gone beyond that moment you ought to enter into
something else and see that historically it was useful but now is so no longer.
Certainly, to those who have reached, for instance, a certain state of development
and mental control, I won't say, ``Read the Dhammapada and meditate on it'';
it would be a waste of time. I give it to those who have not gone beyond the
stage where it is necessary. But always man takes upon his shoulders an interminable
burden. He does not want to drop anything of the past and he stoops more and
more under the weight of a useless accumulation. You have a guide for
a part of the way but when you have travelled this part leave the road and
the guide and go farther! This is something men find difficult to do. When
they get hold of something which helps them, they cling to it, they do not
want to move any more. Those who have progressed with the help of Christianity
do not want to give it up and they carry it on their shoulders; those who
have progressed with the help of Buddhism do not want to leave it and they
carry it on their shoulders, and so this hampers the advance and you are indefinitely
delayed. Once you have passed the stage, let it drop, let it go! Go farther.
Top
Q.
Mother, the present religio-political movement for the revival of Buddhism...
What?
Oh! I don't take part in politics. It is altogether useless. People use things
just for political ends, but that is not at all interesting.
(CWM.
V.9-pp.194-198)
I
have received four questions. Naturally they are not about what I have just
read, and they are on three different subjects. And each one needs a very lengthy
answer. But still, I am going to take the first two which go together. They
are about the involution of the Spirit. {Sri Aurobindo tells us that evolution
is the result of an involution. Thus, life is involved in Matter, mind is involved
in life and supermind is involved in mind. Nothing can come out of nothing;
it is because the Supreme is involved in Matter that the Supreme can emerge
from Matter.
The
first question:
Top
Q.
``If all that is to manifest is already involved in Matter, are there,
hidden in it, other principles besides the supermind which will be revealed
when it has been fully manifested?''
Logically
speaking, ``yes'', for essentially, there is an identity between Matter and
the Supreme. Butand this brings in the second question:
Q.
``Did the involution take place in Time and does it have a history as
evolution has?''
It
could almost be said that the answer to this question depends on the mental
attitude of the person who asks it... Scholars will tell you that there are
different schools which have spoken about these things in ways that are also
very different. There are the metaphysicians who deny any history, minds that
are essentially speculative, philosophical and, as I said, metaphysical, abstract,
who consider that histories are only for children. There are the psychologists
who translate everything into movements of consciousness, and finally there
are those who love images and for whom universal history is a great development
which might be described as ``cinematographic'', and this development in pictures
is for them something much more living and tangible, for even if it is only
symbolic, it makes them understand things in a more intimate and real way.
Top
It
goes without saying that the three explanations are equally true, and that
the important thing is to be able to synthesise and harmonise them in one's
thought. But we shall put aside the aridities of metaphysics, for it is better
to read about them in the books of scholars who tell you things in a very
precise, very exact and very dry fashion! The psychological point of view...
it is better to live it than speak about it. So we are left with the story
for children. It is good to be always a child. And although we must take care
not to believe in it as a dogma in which nothing should be changed if one
doesn't want to be sacrilegious, we can at least take these stories as a means
to make living to our childlike consciousness something which would otherwise
be too remote from us.
There
we can choose from many stories that have been told, stories more or less
true, more or less complete, more or less expressive. But if by interiorising
or exteriorising oneself which, from a certain point of view, is essentially
the same thing if one can relive this story, at least partially and in its
broad outlines, it helps one to understand and hence to master the how and
why of things. Some people have done that, they are the ones usually considered
as initiates, occultists and prophets at the same time and very beautiful
stories have been told.
I
am going to tell you one, very succinctly. Don't take it as a gospel! Take
it rather... as a story.
When
the Supreme decided to exteriorise Himself in order to be able to see Himself,
the first thing in Himself which He exteriorised was the Knowledge of the
world and the Power to create it. This Knowledge-Consciousness and Force began
its work; and in the supreme Will there was a plan, and the first principle
of this plan was the expression of both the essential Joy and the essential
Freedom, which seemed to be the most interesting feature of this creation.
Top
So
intermediaries were needed to express this Joy and Freedom in forms. And at
first four Beings were emanated to start this universal development which
was to be the progressive objectivisation of all that is potentially contained
in the Supreme. These Beings were, in the principle of their existence: Consciousness
and Light, Life, Bliss and Love, and Truth.
You
can easily imagine that they had a sense of great power, great strength, of
something tremendous, for they were essentially the very principle
of these things. Besides, they had full freedom of choice, for this creation
was to be Freedom itself... As soon as they set to work they had their own
conception of how it had to be done being totally free, they chose to do it
independently. Instead of taking the attitude of servant and instrument of
which Sri Aurobindo speaks in what I have just read to you, {"The sword
has a joy in the battle-play, the arrow has a mirth in its hiss and its leaping,
the earth has a rapture in its dizzy whirl through space, the sun has the
royal ecstasy of its blazing splendours and its eternal motion. O thou self-conscious
instrument, take thou too the delight of thy own appointed workings.'' {``The
Delight of Works'', extract from {The Superman}, Cent. Vol. 16, p. 288}} they
naturally took the attitude of the master, and this mistake as I may call
it was the first cause, the essential cause of all the disorder in the universe.
As soon as there was separation for that is the essential cause, separation
as soon as there was separation between the Supreme and what had been emanated,
Consciousness changed into inconscience, Light into darkness, Love into hatred,
Bliss into suffering, Life into death and Truth into falsehood. And they proceeded
with their creations independently, in separation and disorder. The result
is the world as we see it. It was made progressively, stage by stage, and
it would truly take a little too long to tell you all that, but finally, the
consummation is Matter obscure, inconscient, miserable... The creative Force
which had emanated these four Beings, essentially for the creation of the
world, witnessed what was happening, and turning to the Supreme she prayed
for the remedy and the cure of the evil that had been done. Then she was given
the command to precipitate her Consciousness into this inconscience, her Love
into this suffering, and her Truth into this falsehood. And a greater consciousness,
a more total love, a more perfect truth than what had been emanated at first,
plunged, so to say, into the horror of Matter in order to awaken in it consciousness,
love and truth, and to begin the movement of Redemption which was to bring
the material universe back to its supreme origin. So, there have been what
might be called ``successive involutions'' in Matter, and a history of these
involutions. The present result of these involutions is the appearance of
the Supermind emerging from the inconscience; but there is nothing to indicate
that after this appearance there will be no others... for the Supreme is inexhaustible
and will always create new worlds. That is my story.
(CWM.
V.9-pp.204-207)
Top
My
eye won't allow me to read today {On the 27th February there was only a reading
followed by a meditation, no talk was given. Since the Darshan of November
24, Mother had been having a slight haemorrhage in her left eye.} But I have
been asked a question on what I read to you last week. I am going to reply
to it this evening. Pavitra, will you read, please?
(Pavitra reads)} What does this paragraph mean?: ``Freedom is the law
of being in its illimitable unity, secret master of all Nature: servitude
is the law of love in the being voluntarily giving itself to serve the play
of its other selves in the multiplicity.''
Thoughts
and Glimpses, Cent. Vol. 16, p. 386
At
a superficial glance these two things appear absolutely contradictory
Freedom
is a sort of instinctive need, a necessity for the integral development of
the being. In its essence it is a perfect realisation of the highest consciousness,
it is the expression of Unity and of union with the Divine, it is the very
sense of the Origin and the fulfillment. But because this Unity has manifested
in the many in the multiplicity something had to serve as a link between the
Origin and the manifestation, and the most perfect link one can conceive of
is love. And what is the first gesture of love? To give oneself, to serve.
What is its spontaneous, immediate, inevitable movement? To serve. To serve
in a joyous, complete, total self-giving.
Top
So,
in their purity, in their truth, these two things freedom and service far
from being contradictory, are complementary. It is in perfect union with the
supreme Reality that perfect freedom is found, for all ignorance, all unconsciousness
is a bondage which makes you inefficient, limited, powerless. The least ignorance
in oneself is a limitation, one is no longer free. As long as there is an
element of unconsciousness in the being, it is a limitation, a bondage. Only
in perfect union with the supreme Reality can perfect freedom exist. And how
to realise this union if not through a spontaneous self-giving: the gift of
love. And as I said, the first gesture, the first expression of love is service.
So
the two are closely united in the Truth. But here on earth, in this world
of ignorance and inconscience, this service which should have been spontaneous,
full of love, the very expression of love, has become something imposed, an
inevitable necessity, performed only for the maintenance of life, for the
continuation of existence, and thus it has become something ugly, miserable
humiliating. What should have been a flowering, a joy, has become an ugliness,
a weariness, a sordid obligation. And this sense, this need for freedom has
also been deformed and has become that kind of thirst for independence which
leads straight to revolt, to separation, isolation, the very opposite of true
freedom.
Independence!...I
remember having heard an old occultist and sage give a beautiful reply to
someone who said, ``I want to be independent! I am an independent being! I
exist only when I am independent!'' And the other answered him with a smile,
``Then that means that nobody will love you, because if someone loves you,
you immediately become dependent on this love.''
It
is a beautiful reply, for it is indeed love which leads to Unity and it is
Unity which is the true expression of freedom. And so those who in the name
of their right to freedom claim independence, turn their backs completely
on this true freedom, for they deny love.
The
deformation comes from constraint.
One
cannot love through compulsion, you cannot be compelled to love, it is no
longer love. Therefore, as soon as compulsion intervenes, it becomes a falsehood.
All the movements of the inner being must be spontaneous movements, with that
spontaneity which comes from an inner harmony, an understanding from a voluntary
self-giving from a return to the deeper truth, the reality of being, the Origin
and the Goal.
(CWM.
V.9-pp.49-51)
Top
*
