Questions and Answers 1956
I have already told you, explained to you, that outer forms,
if looked at not in themselves, for themselves, in their outer
appearance alone, but as the expression of a deeper and more
lasting reality, all these forms—as indeed all circumstances and
events—all become symbolic of the Force which is behind and
uses them to express itself. There is not a single circumstance,
not a form, not an action, not amovement which is not symbolic
of something deeper, something which stands behind and which,
normally, ought to animate all action.
For a certain state of consciousness there is not a single
word, not a gesture, not an action which does not express
a deeper or higher reality, more lasting, more essential, more
true; and once one has seen and felt that, everything takes on
a meaning, and one sees more clearly how things ought to be
organised, arranged, so that a deeper truth may express itself
still better than it does at present.
It depends on the subject one wants to express: gods, men or
things.
When one paints a picture or composes music or writes
poetry, each one has his own way of expression. Every painter,
every musician, every poet, every sculptor has or ought to have
a unique, personal contact with the Divine, and through the
work which is his speciality, the art he has mastered, he must
express this contact in his own way, with his own words, his
own colours. For himself, instead of copying the outer form
of Nature, he takes these forms as the covering of something
else, precisely of his relationship with the realities which are
behind, deeper, and he tries to make them express that. Instead
of merely imitating what he sees, he tries to make them speak of
what is behind them, and it is this which makes all the difference
between a living art and just a flat copy of Nature.
Mother contemplates a flower she is holding in her hand. It is
the golden champak flower (Michelia champaka).
Have you noticed this flower?
It has twelve petals in three rows of four.
We have called it “Supramental psychological perfection”.
I had never noticed that it had three rows: a small row like
this, another one a little larger and a third one larger still. They
are in gradations of four: four petals, four petals, four petals.
Well, if one indeed wants to see in the forms of Nature a
symbolic expression, one can see a centre which is the supreme
Truth, and a triple manifestation—because four indicates manifestation—
in three superimposed worlds: the outermost—
these are the largest petals, the lightest in colour—that is a
physical world, then a vital world and a mental world, and then
at the centre, the supramental Truth.
And you can discover all kinds of other analogies.
Is that all?
Psychologically, to what does this division correspond
in our life?
I suppose it is different for each one. So each one must find
those activities which increase his aspiration, his consciousness,
his deeper knowledge of things, and those which, on the contrary,
mechanise him and bring him back more thoroughly into
a purely material relation with things.
It is difficult to make a general rule.
Truly speaking, it depends more on the way of doing a thing
than on the thing itself.
You take up some work which is quite material, like cleaning
the floor or dusting a room; well, it seems to me that this
work can lead to a very deep consciousness if it is done with
a certain feeling for perfection and progress; while other work
considered of a higher kind as, for example, studies or literary
and artistic work, if done with the idea of seeking fame or for the
satisfaction of one’s vanity or for some material gain, will not
help you to progress. So this is already a kind of classification
which depends more on the inner attitude than on the outer fact.
But this classification can be applied to everything.
Of course, there is a kind of work which is done only for
purely pecuniary and personal reasons, like the one—whatever
it may be—which is done to earn a living. That attitude is
exactly the one Sri Aurobindo compares with the damp logs of
wood which are heaped so thick the flame cannot leap up. It has
something dark and heavily dull about it.
And this brings us to something which I have already told
you several times, but which presents a problem not yet solved
by circumstances. I think I have already spoken to you about it,
but still I shall speak about it again this evening because of this
sentence of Sri Aurobindo’s.
At the beginning of my present earthly existence I came into
contact with many people who said that they had a great inner
aspiration, an urge towards something deeper and truer, but that
they were tied down, subjected, slaves to that brutal necessity of
earning their living, and that this weighed them down so much,
took up so much of their time and energy that they could not
engage in any other activity, inner or outer. I heard this very
often, I saw many poor people—I don’t mean poor from the
monetary point of view, but poor because they felt imprisoned
in a material necessity, narrow and deadening.
Iwas very young at that time, and I always used to tell myself
that if ever I could do it, I would try to create a little world—oh!
quite a small one, but still... a small world where people would
be able to live without having to be preoccupied with food and
lodging and clothing and the imperative necessities of life, so as
to see whether all the energies freed by this certainty of a secure
material living would turn spontaneously towards the divine life
and the inner realisation.
Well, towards the middle of my life—at least, what is usually
the middle of a human life—the means were given to me
and I could realise this, that is, create such conditions of life.
And I have come to this conclusion, that it is not this necessity
which hinders people from consecrating themselves to an inner
realisation, but that it is a dullness, a tamas, a lack of aspiration,
a miserable laxity, an I-don’t-care attitude, and that those who
face even the hardest conditions of life are sometimes the ones
who react most and have the intensest aspiration.
That’s all. I am waiting for the contrary to be proved to me.
I would very much like to see the contrary but I haven’t
yet seen it. As there are many energies which are not utilised,
since this terrible compulsion of having something to eat or a
roof to sleep under or clothes on one’s back does not exist—as
one is sure of all that—there is a whole mass of energies which
are not utilised for that; well, they are spent in idle stupidities.
And of these, the foolishness which seems to me the most disastrous
is to keep one’s tongue going: chatter, chatter, chatter. I
haven’t known a place where they chatter more than here, and
say everything they should not say, busy themselves with things
they should not be concerned with. And I know it is merely an
overflow of unused energy.
That is all.
So the division in works is perhaps not quite what one
thinks....
Open to Sri Aurobindo's consciousness and let it transform your life.
- The Mother (26 September 1971)
