Calm—Peace—Equality
Page-2
A
great wave (or sea) of calm and constant consciousness of
a vast and luminous Reality—this is precisely the character
of the fundamental realisation of the Supreme Truth in its
first touch on the mind and the soul. One could not ask
for a better beginning or foundation—it is like a
rock on which the rest can be built. It means certainly
not only a Presence, but the Presence—and it
would be a great mistake to weaken the experience by any
non-acceptance or doubt of its character.
It
is not necessary to define it and one ought not even try
to turn it into an image; for this Presence is in its nature
infinite. Whatever it has to manifest of itself or out of
itself, it will do inevitably by its own power, if there
is a sustained acceptance.
It
is quiet true that it is a grace sent and the only return
needed for such a grace is acceptance, gratitude and to
allow the Power that has touched the consciousness to develop
what has to be developed in the being—by keeping oneself
open to it. The total transformation of the nature cannot
be done in a moment; it must take long and proceed through
stages; what is now experienced is only an initiation, a
foundation for the new consciousness in which that transformation
will become possible. The automatic spontaneity of the experience
ought by itself to show that it is nothing constructed by
the mind, will or emotions; it comes from a truth that is
beyond them.
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Sri Aurobindo
To
reject doubts means control of one’s thoughts—very
certainly so. But the control of one’s thoughts is
as necessary as the control of one’s vital desires
and passions or the control of the movements of one’s
body—for the Yoga, and not for the Yoga only. One cannot
be a fully developed mental being even, if one has not a
control of the thoughts, is not their observer, judge, master,—the
mental Purusha, manomaya purusa, säksï,
anumantä, ïsvara. It is no more proper
for the mental being to be the tennis-ball of unruly and
uncontrollable thoughts than to be a rudderless ship in
the storm of the desires and passions or a slave of either
the inertia or the impulses of the body. I know it is more
difficult because man being primarily a creature of mental
Prakriti identifies himself with the movements of his mind
and cannot at once dissociate himself and stand free from
the swirl and eddies of the mind whirlpool. It is comparatively
easy for him to put a control on his body; at least on a
certain part of its movements; it is less easy but still
very possible after a struggle to put a mental control on
his vital impulsions and desires; but to sit like the Tantric
Yogi on the river, above the whirlpool of his thoughts,
is less facile. Nevertheless, it can be done; all developed
mental men, those who get beyond the average, have in one
way or other or at least at certain time and for certain
purposes to separate the two parts of the mind, the active
part which is the factory of thoughts and the quiet masterful
part which is at once a Witness and a Will, observing them,
judging, rejecting, eliminating, accepting, ordering corrections
and changes, the Master in the House of Mind, capable of
self-empire, sämräjya.
The
Yogi goes still farther; he is not only a master there,
but even while in mind in a way, he gets out of it as it
were, and stands above or quiet back from it and free. For
him the image of the factory of thoughts is no longer quiet
valid; for he sees that thoughts come from outside, from
the universal Mind or universal Nature, sometimes formed
and distinct, sometimes unformed and then they are given
shape somewhere in us. The principal business of our mind
is either a response of acceptance or a refusal to these
thought-waves (as also vital waves, subtle physical energy
waves) or this giving personal-mental form to thought-stuff
(or vital movements) from the environing Nature-Force.
The
possibilities of the mental being are not limited, it can
be the free Witness and Master in its own house. A progressive
freedom and mastery over one’s mind is perfectly within
the possibilities of anyone who has faith and will to undertake
it.
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Sri Aurobindo
The
first step is a quiet mind—silence is a further step,
but quietude must be there; and by a quiet mind I mean a
mental consciousness within, which sees thoughts arrive
to it and move about but does not itself feel that it is
thinking or identifying itself with the thoughts or call
them its own. Thoughts, mental movements may pass through
it as wayfarers appear and pass from elsewhere through a
silent country—the quiet mind observes them or does
not care to observe them, but, in either case, does not
become active or lose its quietude. Silence is more than
quietude; it can be gained by banishing thought altogether
from the inner mind, keeping it voiceless or quiet outside,
but more easily it is established by a descent from above—one
feels it coming down, entering and occupying or surrounding
the personal consciousness which then tends to merge itself
in the vast impersonal silence.
-
Sri Aurobindo
