Sri Aurobindo Ashram — новинки

This is a collection of messages, talks and answers from The Mother which relate to Auroville. It is not exhaustive but fairly complete. With the exception of three passages in the second chapter (A Dream, The Ideal Town, Synthesis of Cultures) all the items included here refer specifically to Auroville.

The first condition is not to have one's own personal interest as a goal.
The first qualities needed are boldness, courage and perseverance.
And then to be conscious that one knows nothing compared to what one ought to know, that one can do nothing compared to what one ought to do, that one is nothing compared to what one ought to be.
One must have an invariable will to acquire what is lacking in one's nature, to know what one does not yet know, to be able to do what one is not yet able to do.
One must constantly progress in the light and peace that come from the absence of personal desires.
One could take as a programme:
"Always better. Forward!"
And to have only one goal: to know the Divine in order to be able to manifest Him.
Persevere, and what you cannot do today you will be able to do tomorrow.

This facsimile first published in 1984.

If at any time a deep sorrow, a searing doubt or an intense pain overwhelms you and drives you to despair, there is an infallible way to regain calm and peace.
In the depths of our being there shines a light whose brilliance is equalled only by its purity; a light, a living and conscious portion of a universal godhead who animates and nourishes and illumines Matter, a powerful and unfailing guide for those who are willing to heed his law, a helper full of solace and loving forbearance towards all who aspire to see and hear and obey him. No sincere and lasting aspiration towards him can be in vain; no strong and respectful trust can be disappointed, no expectation ever deceived.
This facsimile first published in 1985.

If they are not controlled, mastered, yes. But not necessarily. Not necessarily. It might make the control a little more difficult, for naturally it is more difficult to master an individualised being than a crude one-with a completer individualisation the ego becomes more crystallised and also self-satisfied, doesn't it? . . . But granting that this difficulty has been overcome, well, in a highly developed individuality the result is infinitely superior to the one obtained in a crude and uneducated nature. I am not saying that the process of transformation or rather of consecration is not more difficult but once it is achieved the result is far superior. This may very well be compared with musical instruments, one of which has a certain number of notes and the other ten times as many. Well, it is perhaps easier to play an instrument of four or five notes but the music that could be played on a complete keyboardis obviously far superior! One could even compare this to an orchestra much more than to a simple instrument. A human being, a fully developed human individuality is very much like one of those stupendous orchestras which has hundreds and hundreds of players. It is obviously very difficult to control and conduct them but the result can be marvellous.

They say many things.
Spiritual life does not depend upon these considerations, not at all. Certain social virtues depend upon them and solely because there exist in some environments special traditions of education and a particular education is better than others. But that is all.
As for the question of not mixing blood, it is a subject for discussion. Because, for example, if you take the various kinds of dogs (excuse me, I do not mean to make an improper comparison), still, the dog belonging to its kind of breed, when great care is taken to keep the type pure, to prevent any mixture, becomes more and more stupid, whilst the street-dog, product of mixed breed and sometimes a horror from the physical point of view - it is hideous, made of one kind crossed with another - is generally much superior from the point of view of intelligence. So even in these cases one cannot say. . . . Marriages in small communities, made within the caste, where no mixture is allowed, end usually in a gradual, progressive decline of intelligence in the group. It is not a selection, rather the contrary. New admixtures are always necessary to bring forth new types capable of manifesting progress.

This facsimile first published in 1984.

If you look at yourself carefully, you will see that one always carries in oneself the opposite of the virtue one has to realise (I use "virtue" in its widest and highest sense)
So, do not despair if you find in yourself the greatest weakness, for perhaps it is the sign of the greatest divine strength. Do not say, "I am like that, I can't be otherwise." It is not true. You are "like that" because, precisely, you ought to be the opposite. And all your difficulties are there just that you may learn to transform them into the truth they are hiding.
Once you have understood this, many worries come to an end
If the world was not essentially the opposite of what it has become, there would be no hope. For the hole is so black and so deep, and the inconscience so complete, that if this were not the sign of the total consciousness, well, there would be nothing more to do but pack up one's kit and go away. Men like Shankara, who did not see much further than the end of their nose, said that the world was not worth the trouble of living in, for it was imrgri-sible, that it was better to treat it as an illusion and go away, there was nothing to be done with it. I tell you, on the contrary, that it is because the world is very bad, very dark, very ugly, very unconscious, full of misery and suffering, that it can become the supreme Beauty, the supreme Light, the supreme Consciousness and supreme Felicity.
This facsimile first published in 1984.

Yes. Sri Aurobindo is referring here to his experience in Alipore jail. But what is interesting in this aphorism is the contrast he points out between the material prison where only his body was confined, while his spirit, unfettered by social conventions and prejudice, free from all preconceived ideas and all doctrinaire limitations, had a direct and conscious contact with the Divine and a first revelation of the integral Yoga; and, on the other hand, the mental prison of narrow rules which excludes life" and within which people often confine themselves when they renounce ordinary existence in order to devote themselves to a spiritual life based on traditional dogmatic ideas. So Sri Aurobindo is here, as always, the champion of the real freedom beyond all rules and limitations, the total freedom of perfect union with the supreme and eternal Truth.

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