If only we could allow His will to do the rest.

Here can be no doubt that if you sincerely want to get out of [what you call error, suffering, misery etc.], it is not so difficult after all: you have nothing to do, you only have to allow the Lord to do everything. And He does everything. He does everything. It is so wonderful, so wonderful!

He takes anything, even what we call a very ordinary intelligence and he simply teaches you to put this intelligence aside, to rest: “There, be quiet, don’t stir, don’t bother me, I don’t need you.” Then a door opens—you don’t even feel that you have to open it; it is wide open, you are taken over to the other side. All that is done by Someone else, not you. And then the other way becomes impossible.

All this... oh, this tremendous labour of the mind striving to understand, toiling and giving itself headaches! ... It is absolutely useless, absolutely useless, no use at all, it merely increases the confusion.

You are faced with a so-called problem: what should you say, what should you do, how should you act? There is nothing to do, nothing, you only have to say to the Lord, “There, You see, it is like that”—that’s all. And then you stay very quiet. And then quite spontaneously, without thinking about it, without reflection, without calculation, nothing, nothing, without the slightest effort—you do what has to be done. That is to say, the Lord does it, it is no longer you. He does it, He arranges the circumstances, He arranges the people, He puts the words into your mouth or your pen—He does everything, everything, everything, everything; you have nothing more to do but to allow yourself to live blissfully.

I am more and more convinced that people do not really want it.

Q: But clearing the ground is difficult, the work of clearing the ground beforehand.
But you don’t even need to do it! He does it for you.

Q: But they are constantly breaking in: the old consciousness, the old thoughts...
Yes, they try to come in again, by habit. You only have to say, “Lord, You see, You see, You see, it is like that”—that’s all. “Lord, You see, You see this, You see that, You see this fool”—and it is all over immediately. And it changes automatically, my child, without the slightest effort. Simply to be sincere, that is to say, to truly want everything to be right. You are perfectly conscious that you can do nothing about it, that you have no capacity. . .. But there is always something that wants to do it by itself; that’s the trouble, otherwise...

No, you may be full of an excellent goodwill and then you want to do it. That’s what complicates everything. Or else you don’t have faith, you believe that the Lord will not be able to do it and that you must do it yourself, because He does not know! This, this kind of stupidity is very common. “How can He see things? We live in a world of Falsehood, how can He see Falsehood and see...” But He sees the thing as it is! Exactly!

I am not speaking of people of no intelligence, I am speaking of people who are intelligent and who try—there is a kind of conviction, like that, somewhere, even in people who know that we live in a world of Ignorance and Falsehood and that there is a Lord who is All-Truth. They say, “Precisely because He is All-Truth, He does not understand. He does not understand our falsehood, I must deal with it myself.” That is very strong, very common.

Ah! we make complications for nothing.

The Mother [CWM1, 10:152–54]

Being good is not good enough!

If I cannot be Rama, then I would be Ravana; for he is the dark side of Vishnu.
                                                                                                                              Sri Aurobindo
                                                                                                                              Thoughts And Aphorisms


This means that sweetness without strength and goodness without power are incomplete and cannot totally express the Divine.
I could say in keeping with the kind of image used by Sri Aurobindo, that the charity and generosity of a converted Asura are infinitely more effective than those of an innocent angel.

 

Works Of The Mother,

 On Thoughts And Aphorisms, 

Volume-10, Karma-69-70 206

 

This is the wonder of the way of works that even enmity to God can be made an agency of salvation. Sometimes God draws and attaches us most swiftly to Him by wrestling with us as our fierce, invincible & irreconcilable enemy.

Sri Aurobindo

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