Questions and Answers 1956
The necessities of physical things also? I don’t understand.
All this, not only physical necessities. All these things are at
times lights, that is to say, knowledge diminished and mixed
with ignorance, at times false lights, that is, no knowledge at
all: simply ideas, conceptions, ways of seeing, ways of feeling—
all these things considered as knowledge by the ordinary human
consciousness.
SriAurobindo speaks even of physical needs, the needs of the
body, which are generally considered as imperative and which
have their own truth; he says that even that can be only quite a
partial light, that is to say, a semblance of knowledge or even
something false.
That goes against all modern ideas.
People always have the impression that what they call the
needs of the body, what the body demands, is an absolute law;
that if it is not obeyed, well, one commits a great wrong against
one’s body which will suffer the consequences. And Sri Aurobindo
says that these needs in themselves are either very partial
lights, that is to say, only a way of seeing things, or even no
lights at all—completely false.
If one were to study the problem attentively enough, one
would find out to what an extent these so-called needs of the
body depend on the mental attitude. For example, the need to
eat. There are people who literally die of hunger if they have
not eaten for eight days. There are others who do it deliberately
and observe fasting as a principle of yoga, as a necessity in yoga.
And for them, at the end of eight days’ fasting, the body is as
healthy as when they started, and sometimes healthier!
Finally, for all these things, it is a question of proportion, of
measure. It is obvious that one can’t always live without eating.
But it is as obvious that the idea people have about the need
to eat is not true. Indeed, it is a whole subject for study: The
importance of the mental attitude in relation to the body.
Sri Aurobindo does not recognise the needs of the body as
things true in themselves. He says: it is not true, it is only an idea
you have, an impression, it is not something true which carries
its truth in itself.
It is the truth of each being.
Each being carries in himself his own spiritual law, his supramental
law. It is not the same for everyone, it is not one single
identical law. For each one it is the truth of his being, that is to say,
the thing he must realise in the universe and the place he
must occupy in the world.
That is the truth of his being.
That is how Sri Aurobindo describes the different pantheons of
different countries, specially of Greece or India. That is to say, it
is an aesthetic and intellectualway of transforming all things into
divine creatures, divine beings: all the forces of Nature, all the
elements, all spiritual forces, all intellectual forces, all physical
forces, all these are transformed into a number of godheads and
they are given an aesthetic and intellectual reality. It is a symbolic
and artistic and literary and poetic way of dealing with all the
universal forces and realities. That is how these pantheons came
into existence, like the Greek or Egyptian pantheon or else the
pantheon of India.
All these gods are representations which Sri Aurobindo calls
“aesthetic and intellectual”—a way of conceiving the universe.
This is not to say that they do not correspond to a truth—to a
reality rather than a truth. There are beings like that; but this is
a particular way of approaching the universal world or rather
the universal worlds.
That depends on people. There are people who are helped by it,
there are people who are not helped at all.
Morality is something altogether artificial and arbitrary, and
in most cases, among the best, it checks the true spiritual effort
by a sort of moral satisfaction that one is on the right path and
a true gentleman, that one does one’s duty, fulfils all the moral
requirements of life. Then one is so self-satisfied that one no
longer moves or makes any progress.
It is very difficult for a virtuous man to enter the path of
God; this has been said very often, but it is altogether true, for
he is most self-satisfied, he thinks he has realised what he ought
to have realised, he no longer has either the aspiration or even
that elementary humility which makes one want to progress.
You see, one who is known here as a sattwic man1 is usually
very comfortably settled in his own virtue and never thinks of
coming out of it. So, that puts you a million leagues away from
the divine realisation.
What really helps, until one has found the inner light, is
to make for oneself a certain number of rules which naturally
should not be too rigid and fixed, but yet should be precise
enough to prevent one from going completely out of the
right path or making irreparable mistakes—mistakes the consequences
of which one suffers all one’s life.
To do that, it is good to set up a certain number of principles
in oneself, which, however, should be for each one, in conformity
with his own nature. If you adopt a social, collective rule,
you immediately make yourself a slave to this social rule, and
that prevents you almost radically from making any effort for
transformation.
Well, that is the light within, now.
What is the difficulty? Where do you see any objection or
contradiction? What is your difficulty?
Well, wait until it occurs in you and you will know it!
All right. Imagine that in a dark room you have put an oil
lamp, one which burns oil, as we used to have fifty years ago—
we had oil lamps in the rooms, as now there are lanterns; they
were a little better but it was the same thing. So you were lighting
your room with that, and then suddenly somebody invented the
means of lighting it by electricity. So your oil lamp is replaced
by a beautiful electric lamp which gives ten times more light.
What is your difficulty, your problem?
You have always had a light to illumine your room—your
inner room—but instead of an oil lamp it has become an electric
lamp. That’s all.
You don’t understand? No? It is not very difficult to understand.
One wants to see that light.
To see? Ah!... Enter the room, you will see it.
(Silence)
Is that all?
Sri Aurobindo is speaking of the mental constructions, representations
or conclusions of the intellect, of the suggestions and
instigations of the Life-force, of the needs of the body. Now,
all this, these half-lights or false lights can serve a little on
the path, can help us a little, and only for a while. And all
that is not this, all the rest, that is to say, all the countless
thoughts and movements, sensations and feelings one has, well,
all this is of no use at all. And worse than being quite useless,
it detains us on the way, that’s all. It confuses us. That
is to say, it creates an inner confusion and must be altogether
ignored.
All the countless things one thinks, experiences, feels, sees,
does... all that is of no use at all. Naturally, if one looks at it
from the point of view of yoga.
(Turning to the child who wanted to see the light) You have
still another question?
How to enter the room?
You take a key and open the door!
You must find the key.
Or you sit down in front of the door until you have found the
word, the idea or the force which opens it—as in the Arabian
Nights tales.
It is not a joke, it is very serious. You must sit down in front
of the door and then concentrate until you have found the key
or the word or the power to open it.
If one doesn’t try, it doesn’t open by itself. Perhaps after
thousands of years, but you want to do it immediately—so?
To do it immediately, you must sit down obstinately before the
door until you have found the means. It may be a key, it may
be a word, it may be a force, it may be anything at all, and you
remain there before the door until it opens.
And you do not think of anything else.
Only of the door.
Is there no key-hole through which the light can escape?
A key-hole! What do you mean? A chink through which the
light can escape?... Perhaps it is escaping, but perhaps no one
sees it either!
It is escaping.
But then that’s another problem: you must open your eyes.
You must learn to open your eyes, to look.
Very small babies do not see, even very small animals do
not see, tiny baby kittens do not see. It takes them several hours
or several days—they don’t see.
You must learn to see.
Open to Sri Aurobindo's consciousness and let it transform your life.
- The Mother (26 September 1971)
