The right mix

It is well not to be too loosely playful in one's games or too grimly serious in one's life and works. We seek in both a playful freedom and a serious order.

Sri Aurobindo

Divine Grace.

We must learn to rely only on the Divine Grace and to call for its help in all circumstances; then it will work out constant miracles.

The real change.

This erring race of human beings dreams always of perfecting their environment by the machinery of government and society; but it is only by the perfection of the soul within that the outer environment can be perfected. What thou art within, that outside thee thou shalt enjoy; no machinery can rescue thee from the law of thy being.

Sri Aurobindo

Absence of personal desire.

One must progress constantly in the light and the peace which come from the absence of personal desire.

14:p.167

The Mother

Inculcate in them (children) the will to conquer the future

For the children, precisely because they are children, the best would be to inculcate in them the will to conquer the future; the will to look ahead always and move forward as rapidly as they can towards ... what will be. But not to drag along, like a millstone around their necks, the burden of a whole past weighing down on them. Only when you are already very high up in consciousness and knowledge is it good to look back in order to find the points when the future began to be outlined. When you can see the whole at a glance, when you have a very general vision, it's interesting to know that what will be realized ahead was already announced before; just as Sri Aurobindo said that "the divine life will manifest on earth because it is ALREADY buried in the depths of Matter." From this point of view it's interesting to look back or look at the very bottom (not in order to know what happened or to know what men have known – that's quite useless).

As for the child, he should be told, "There are marvels to be manifested, prepare yourself to receive them." Then, if they want something a little more concrete and easy to understand, they can be told, "Sri Aurobindo came to announce these things; when you are able to read him, you will understand." This awakens the interest and the desire to learn.[…]

It would be interesting to formulate or work out a new method of teaching for the children, taking them very young. Very young, it's easy. There must be people (oh, we would need remarkable teachers) who have, first, sufficient documentation on what is known, so as to be able to answer all questions; and at the same time, at least the knowledge, if not the experience (the experience would be better) of the true intuitive intellectual attitude, and ... naturally, the capacity would be still preferable, but at any rate the knowledge that the true way to know is mental silence: an attentive silence turned towards the truer Consciousness, and the capacity to receive what comes from there. The best would be to have that capacity; in any case, they should explain that it's the true thing – give a sort of demonstration – and that it works not only with regard to what must be learned, the whole field of knowledge, but also with regard to the whole field of what must be done: the capacity to receive the exact indication of HOW to do it. As one progresses, it turns into a very clear perception of what must be done, and the precise indication of WHEN it must be done. At the very least, as soon as the children have the capacity to reflect (it begins at seven, but around fourteen or fifteen it's very clear), they should be given some first hints at the age of seven, and a complete explanation at fourteen, of how to do it and that it's the only way enabling you to be in contact with the deeper truth of things; that all the rest is a more or less clumsy mental approximation of something you can know directly.

The conclusion is that the teachers themselves should have at least a sincere beginning of discipline and experience: the point is not to pile up books and just keep repeating them. That's not the way to be a teacher – the whole earth is like that, we can just let it be like that outside if it enjoys it! As for us, we aren't propagandists, we just want to show what can be done and try to prove that it MUST be done.

When you begin with very small children, it's wonderful! With them, there's so little you have to do: you just have to BE.

Never make a mistake.

Never get angry.

Always understand.

Understand and see clearly why this movement took place, why that impulse, what the child's inner constitution is, which point needs to be strengthened and brought to the fore. That's all you have to do, and then leave them: leave them free to blossom, just give them the opportunity to see many things, touch many things, do as many things as possible. It's great fun. And above all, do not try to impose on them something you think you know.

Never scold, always understand, and, if the child is capable, explain. If he isn't capable to receive an explanation, replace the false vibration by a true one (if you are yourself capable of it). But that ... that's asking of the teachers a perfection they rarely have.

But it would be very interesting to draw up a program for the teachers, and the real program for study, starting with the very small ones – they are so plastic and anything leaves such a deep imprint on them! If they were given a few drops of truth when they are very small, they would blossom out quite naturally as their being grows.

That would be a lovely work to do.

MOTHER’S AGENDA, 5 April 1967    

Spirituality and work.

There is no stage of the sadhana in which works are impossible, no passage in the path where there is no foothold and action has to be renounced as incompatible with concentration on the Divine. The foothold is there always; the foothold is the reliance on the Divine, the opening of the being, the will, the energies to the Divine, the surrender to the Divine. All work done in that spirit can be made a means for the sadhana. It may be necessary for an individual here and there to plunge into meditation for a time and suspend work for that time or make it subordinate; but that can only be an individual case and a temporary retirement. Moreover, a complete cessation of work and entire withdrawal into oneself is seldom advisable; it may encourage a too one-sided and visionary condition in which one lives in a sort of mid-world of purely subjective experiences without a firm hold on either external reality or on the highest Reality and without the right use of the subjective experience to create a firm link and then a unification between the highest Reality and the external realisation in life.
Work can be of two kinds - the work that is a field of experience used for the sadhana, for a progressive harmonisation and transformation of the being and its activities, and work that is a realised expression of the Divine. But the time for the latter can be only when the Realisation has been fully brought down into the earth-consciousness; till then all work must be a field of endeavour and a school of experience.

- Sri Aurobindo [SABCL, 23:531]

Very interesting people usually are not bored.

Sweet Mother, why do men take pleasure in making a

lot of noise?

In making a noise? Because they like to deaden themselves. In

silence they have to face their own difficulties, they are in front

of themselves, and usually they don’t like that. In the noise they

forget everything, they become stupefied. So they are happy.

Constantly man rushes into external action in order not to

have time to observe himself and how he lives. For him this is

expressed by the desire to escape from boredom. Indeed, for

some people it is much more tiresome to remain quiet—seated,

or to be still. So for them it represents an escape from boredom:

to make a lot of noise, to commit many stupidities, and become

terribly restless; it is their way of escaping boredom. And when

they sit quietly and look at themselves, they are bored. Perhaps

because they are boring. That’s very likely. The more boring one

is, the more one is bored. Very interesting people usually are not

bored.

Assimilation

Why does the body get tired? We have more or less
regular activities, but one day we are full of energy and
the next day we are quite tired.

Generally this comes from a kind of inner disequilibrium. There
may be many reasons for it, but it all comes to this: a sort of
disequilibrium between the different parts of the being. Now, it
is also possible that the day one had the energy, one spent it too
much, though this is not the case with children; children spend
it until they can no longer do so. One sees a child active till
the moment he suddenly falls fast asleep. He was there, moving,
running; and then, all of a sudden, pluff! finished, he is asleep.
And it is in this way that he grows up, becomes stronger and
stronger. Consequently, it is not the spending that harms you.
The expenditure is made up by the necessary rest—that is set
right very well. No, it is a disequilibrium: the harmony between
the different parts of the being is no longer sufficient.

People think they have only to continue doing for ever what
they were doing or at least remain in the same state of consciousness,
day after day do their little work, and all will go
well. But it is not like that. Suddenly, for some reason or other,
one part of the being—either your feelings or your thoughts
or your vital—makes progress, has discovered something, received
a light, progressed. It takes a leap in progress. All the
rest remains behind. This brings about a disequilibrium. That is
enough to make you very tired. But in fact, it is not tiredness: it is
something which makes you want to keep quiet, to concentrate,
remain within yourself, be like that, and build up slowly a new
harmony among the different parts of the being. And it is very
necessary to have, at a given moment, a sort of rest, for an
assimilation of what one has learnt and a harmonisation of the
different parts of the being.

Why does the body get tired?

Why does the body get tired? We have more or less

regular activities, but one day we are full of energy and

the next day we are quite tired.

Generally this comes from a kind of inner disequilibrium. There

may be many reasons for it, but it all comes to this: a sort of

disequilibrium between the different parts of the being. Now, it

is also possible that the day one had the energy, one spent it too

much, though this is not the case with children; children spend

it until they can no longer do so. One sees a child active till

the moment he suddenly falls fast asleep. He was there, moving,

running; and then, all of a sudden, pluff! finished, he is asleep.

And it is in this way that he grows up, becomes stronger and

stronger. Consequently, it is not the spending that harms you.

The expenditure is made up by the necessary rest—that is set

right very well. No, it is a disequilibrium: the harmony between

the different parts of the being is no longer sufficient.

People think they have only to continue doing for ever what

they were doing or at least remain in the same state of consciousness,

day after day do their little work, and all will go

well. But it is not like that. Suddenly, for some reason or other,

one part of the being—either your feelings or your thoughts

or your vital—makes progress, has discovered something, received

a light, progressed. It takes a leap in progress. All the

rest remains behind. This brings about a disequilibrium. That is

enough to make you very tired. But in fact, it is not tiredness: it is

something which makes you want to keep quiet, to concentrate,

remain within yourself, be like that, and build up slowly a new

harmony among the different parts of the being. And it is very

necessary to have, at a given moment, a sort of rest, for an

assimilation of what one has learnt and a harmonisation of the

different parts of the being.

It is not the love that someone feels for you that can make you happy,
it is the love you feel for others that makes you happy:
for you receive the love that you give from the Divine,
who loves eternally and unfailingly.
The Mother -- 14:p.129