Mother's Force Can Abridge Evolution

Human personality is complex, graded, multifaceted and unique. How does it receive grace and grow?

• Personality exists in layers of physical, vital, mental, spiritual planes.
• Each of these planes is subdivided into physical, vital, mental, and spiritual planes.
• For example, the mental plane divides itself into physical mental, vital mental, mental mental and spiritual mental.
• Brain is the physical mental; nerves are the vital mental; mind, i.e. pure mind is the mental mental and the manomaya Purusha is the spiritual mental.
• So, the four planes are subdivided into 16 sub planes.
• For an external view, they are disparate, not connected with each other, not dependent on each other, i.e. each is capable of growing on its own to its maximum height. That is why we find a good man as a fool; a wicked man resourceful, etc. Personality grows by the influence of the environment, not from inside.
• Progress, development, and evolution mean the measure of the inner control over the external.
• This growth is known as skill on the scale of Skill—Capacity—Talent—Ability.
• Man has learnt walking, talking, writing, etc. For hundreds of years the physical man crawled and finally learned walking. Now that he is civilized, he has inherited the skills of walking in his cells and genes. He does not learn walking anymore as his ancestors learned it, but his mind learns walking and transfers those skills to the body where the dormant skills awake. Man’s effort is confined to activating his mind and patiently transferring it to the cells. The vast reservoir of latent skills awakens to perform the miracle of walking.
• Our argument here is the FORCE is there in the bodily cells. The spiritual GRACE is there too. We are mainly concentrating on force and grace whereas all the powers of Satchidananda are there hidden. They will come in 30,000 years just as the early man has learnt walking. If we can receive Mother’s GRACE in our minds and teach the mind the ways of grace and patiently transfer them to the body, the giant that is sleeping there will awake to raise us to Supermind. I ask only for FORCE or GRACE to be awakened like that. There are 96 such powers to be so awakened.
• What is needed on the part of the devotee is mental consent, mental receptivity which can make her a sadhak. Presently we meet with mental resistance.
• As the beating of the heart, breathing, digestion, etc. were learnt consciously by the animate organism and were handed over to the subconscious, so too receiving the Grace must be learnt consciously and passed on to the subconscious.
• Receptivity to Mother abridges a long process into a short one. My article refers only to receiving LUCK and FORCE.
• The process of the learning moving to the subconscious from conscious is occult. Only the Supermind sees the process.
• In the article on Sat-Brahman in Tamil, I mention the eight levels of knowledge and explain knowledge at each level. The twelve aspects I mention there are the fundamental spiritual determinants. So, each of these twelve aspects has eight levels, thus making 96 levels. These 96 levels include the entire world and its skills. All the rest are the result of their interplay which may run into 9600 or 96,000.
• Man has to learn each of them one after the other. That is why he takes several thousand births to reach liberation. For example, memory is one which exists on all these levels.
• Now compare an agriculture labourer who has shifted to Delhi or New York as a child. Man took 500 years to build these cities. This child in New York does not take 500 years or 50 years to become a New Yorker. He grows into a New York citizen.
• The truth is, anyone who accepts New York will directly grow into a New York citizen.
• So, I suggest a parallel method for LUCK and of course FORCE.
• The agriculture labourer growing into a citizen of a modern city is a process by which mind abridges the period of physical drudgery and labour. We call this Social Evolution. People call this urbanization.
• Above the mind are four levels and then Supermind. Mother is above Supermind in consciousness.
• As New York abridges the social evolution of 500 years, so Mother abridges the spiritual evolution of 30,000 years.
• I am asking for the use of Mother’s Force to abridge social evolution.
• Obviously, this is a small goal for a vast force. Hence, results arrive in a flash and the devotee finds herself at the social summit in a trice.
• Sri Aurobindo says that as there are several levels, when man ascends to each higher level, the forces of that level fully descend on the lower levels till they are saturated.
• You may say the labourer in New York may be a New York citizen but may lack the inner psychological poise or outer cultural polish of smoothness.
• It is true. He reaches the top social layer. But in that layer which he occupies it depends upon his further effort for him to acquire culture. As he socially advances, his own efforts will raise him culturally too, when he takes effort. For the present, I would be satisfied if our devotees reach the social summit of knowledge, fame, power or wealth.
• One may accept Grace positively or negatively. To accept positively means to accept it is grace, knowing its spiritual value. Negatively means we accept it for the material benefits. In addition, one can practise Silent Will as a spiritual discipline or out of fear of speaking, one may keep quiet. Both will bring results but will carry their character as a stamp.
• Man exists at a million points. She gives each at the social point she can receive. It is for her to receive, overcoming resistances. One may work on the lands, in an office or a shop. All receive at the point he can most receive, such as patience or perfection or skill, etc.
• One who has met a devil in his life, and as a principle of Mother accepts that devil as the outer reflection of his own inner makeup, has taken the attitude of transformation and therefore will receive fully and richly for total transformation.
• Mother gives grace for evolution. Man may receive it in his ego and thus allow his ego to develop. That is how the vertical growth turns either into a horizontal growth or rises in a pyramid.
• In the West, they expressed punctuality, orderliness, regularity, honesty and honour to perfection in their work. These are values, i.e. spiritual skills. Expressing spiritual skills in physical work, they realized Brahman in Matter. Cleanliness is the greatest of such values. Brahman in Matter came to them as prosperity.
• We have realized the Brahman in Spirit. It has pervaded the nation and infused the bodies of men with light. We did not follow the above values and did not hesitate to use falsehood, lack of honour, clumsiness, procrastination, etc. These are values of untruth and falsehood. So we gave up our spirituality and further discovered false values in life, which means poverty.
• The reasons for the prosperity of the West are several. Two of them stand out. One is their cold climate and the other is the high respect they accord to women. In cold countries one has to earn in six months food for twelve months, which means the efficiency must be double. In the 20th century one main reason for progress all over the world is the spread of democracy that raises the lowliest of men equal to the highest. When low people are treated with greater respect, they are not easily controllable. Naturally, the efficiency must rise high to accomplish anything. From this point of view, the scale on which the prosperity of nations and the scale on which women’s rights are plotted may almost be parallel.

The rules of progress are TWO:

1. Let those in the lowest plane accept the highest opportunity possible.
2. Give consciously the lowest person the highest opportunity.
• Bengal famine and communal carnage in Calcutta in 1943 and 1947. Sri Aurobindo says that the world forces, sooner or later, have never failed to fulfill His ideas. We know this to be true in scores of occasions. Obviously, had He wished to prevent the famine and carnage, His force would have avoided them. He took the view that His help was there if asked for. Bengal did not ask him to help, nor did the Bengali devotees anywhere. There are two opposite spiritual rules:
1. Grace acts unasked;
2. Grace does not descend if not called down.

A father brings up a son, educates him, and gives him a capital to start an industry. These are the helps he can offer his son. After the industry has started, the boy grows lazy, squanders money, neglects it. Of course, the father can go and sit in the factory, run the shifts, and earn the money for the son to enjoy. The father unfailingly does the first. The second the father should not do. If he does, he spoils the child. It is wrong for him to do so. Sri Aurobindo did not prevent the famine on this principle.

• Technology offers the very last man the very highest convenience and commercial profit. What technology offers in material comforts, convenience and vital enjoyment, spirituality offers in psychological well-being and divine riches in human life. Suppose a devotee is in such commerce and uses technology, how can he express Mother in his work?
• What others do for profit, the devotee can do mainly for the profit of the customer.
• Better than that, the devotee can offer the customer his own service, not so much even for his profit as for the customer’s well being.
• The above will be served by the consecration of his selling.
• Let the devotee go behind the commercial transaction and then he will see 1) psychological harmony of well being and behind it, 2) the spiritual value of the act. Suppose the devotee relates himself to these planes, his own progress will be in that plane. E.g., the devotee is selling a computer as a trader and makes his profit, offering the customer satisfaction. What is behind it? The customer buys that computer to write his accounts, which is now a bother for him. The devotee must endeavour to know that and try to do his best to explain to the customer how best that psychological relief or joy can be derived. The seller’s knowledge of the buyer’s psychological relief will enhance it. The sale of a computer gives the seller a few hundred dollars. This would push the exercise deep down. What will be the result? The devotee will find that every area where he sought such a relief unsuccessfully now will offer it copiously. Push a little more behind. Suppose the devotee sees the customer is tense, indecisive, wasting his time, clumsy, etc. These are spiritual deficiencies. Let him endeavour to act from the spiritual plane and in a trice he will see the customer calm instead of tense, decisive instead of indecisive, etc. Now the customer makes a spiritual growth. Because of this, the devotee’s spiritual growth will receive a spurt which means sales will rise by leaps and bounds.
• Mother’s consciousness is spiritual technology. How much more effective can it be than engineering technology? It is worth trying.
• When you look at people who do not have your endowments, at once you see the difference. Similarly, when you see those who have endowments which you do not have, you comprehend. Take a look around at your friends and relatives and evaluate everyone on this scale. Then evaluate yourself.
• As against the maximum level you can rise to, you will know where you are. That is the self-evaluation. It is the gain.
• One who is in college can help a high school student. Similarly, those who know more of Mother are a source of knowledge to you. You are a similar source of knowledge to others who know less. Should you try to learn everything you can from those around and teach everyone who is around, without egoism, the progress will be great. Take the attitude to one who teaches you that “Here, in this little affair, you are my guru."
• To offer unegoistically to help is to offer Grace. Do it when the impulsion rises from inside, not altruistically or egoistically.
• To ask unegoistically is aspiration. Do it as aspiration, not as asking.
• The Summit, the spiritual summit awaits us all the time. It awaits our cheerful acceptance. It does not offer. It waits to be aspired for.
• The devotee and the yogi need do nothing other than overcome their resistances and imperfections.

To know where we are, to see what She gives, to explain each person and each event in that light, and to MOVE forward not by our effort, but by our surrender is to become a sadhak. (Be conscious, Be receptive, Be sincere, Be faithful, Surrender)

• Sincere conscious receptivity & surrender in good faith.
• The ten rules of psychic education are a summary of the above.

Presently man’s personality is the determinant of his future, his prosperity. The above arguments try to show the composition of human personality in several respects. It takes thousands of years to reach its goal. By knowing one’s own personality and Mother’s Personality of Grace, one is in a position to link them so that the slow evolution of human life is replaced by the quick evolution of Spirit.

To repeat the salient points of such a linking,

• Know your own personality;
• Know the corresponding points of Mother’s Personality
• That which links is Truth, Goodness and Love.

Mother’s psychic education that gives us ten rules elaborates it. For one to realize the psychic, it needs thirty or forty years, if one is lucky. Doing it non-stop in Mother’s atmosphere will achieve it in a few months. The psychic is the soul in Prakriti. We are in Prakriti – mind, vital, body. She wants us to shift from prakriti, not to the soul, but to the evolving soul in Prakriti.

Rule 1:

Rely on the soul, not on the mind.

Rule 2:

Do not seek comfort. The body loves comfort. Denying comfort to the body will enable one to come out of Prakriti. Then one has to move to the psychic through consecration. The body sleeps. When one falls into sleep, he is in the body. By consecrating the sleep – Rule 10 – one enters into the psychic.

Rule 3:

Do not seek the work you like. Take interest in the work that comes to you. That way you deny the vital whose prime motive is interest. The vital eats. Eating keeps us in the vital. By consecrating eating – Rule No. 9 – one moves to the psychic.

Rule 4:

Do not complain. Complaint is to go outside. The work is inside. By complaining, one goes away from the field of work. One complains by speaking. Thus, he is in the vital part of the speech. By consecration of the speech – Rule No. 8 – one moves to the psychic.

Rule 5:

Make a move towards the Divine every time you act. Thus one covers all Time. This covers not a part of the being, but the whole being.

Rule 6:

The external reflects the inner situation. This is a supramental rule. It helps one move from mind to the Supermind. By consecrating the act – Rule No. 7 – the entire BEING is consecrated.

When one knows the true nature of consecration as different from prayer, moves away from the ego, studies the composition of one’s own personality, evaluates it as against what Mother offers and reviews all this in the light of the rules of psychic education, one becomes sincere enough to receive GRACE and becomes Mother’s child.

Levels of Surrender

• Surrender for yoga means abolition of mind and vital and the physical learning of all our present skills – eating, seeing, spelling, etc. anew and afresh. That is what Mother experienced when She did the yoga of the body.
• Before the body is the vital and prior to that is mind. If Mother works in the body, we must be able to work where we are, i.e. in the mind.
• The pity is, our mind in our present state is not fully evolved out of the vital and is still in many issues dominated by the vital. That is why Sri Aurobindo says the release from the vital, the release of Pranamaya Purusha, is the first realization.

One can begin only at the point where he is, not where he wants to start.

• Suppose we agree to begin in our mind, after clearing the vital arrears, how do we go about it? Can it be illustrated by an event? At what point does the Force act?
• Example: A boy in B.A. may live with one who has attained world fame in his subject. The work of the famous man is not only at the top level but extends to very low levels of collecting facts too. The B.A. boy, by virtue of being with his professor and by the professor’s interest in him, can work at his own B.A. level collecting the necessary information for the professor. The information by itself is useless. When this information is used to explain one aspect of the professor’s theory – there are hundreds of such aspects – by virtue of the professor’s theory the student’s work would gain in significance and merit publication in internationally reputed journals. The professor would be willing to take the student’s articles and have them published in these journals. The boy at the age of 20 will attain world fame. For it to last, he should take his B.A., M.A., Ph.D. and write his own books. For all this to be possible, he should learn what he missed in P.U.C.
• Mother offers to do to us in Grace, Luck, Prosperity, Fame, Status, Health, Happiness, etc. what the professor offers to the student. The student should do his part.
• Experiences of the devotees resemble the following:
1. A student in Villupuram College gets his articles published in a London magazine. Often the student does not even see a copy. But what matters to him are his own friends' opinions, none of whom has heard of the London magazine. The success falls flat.
2. For the boy, what matters are his own professors at Villupuram and his Principal. No one understands his value and laughs. Those who understand grow jealous and put the boy down. The boy expects them to value him and waits for their appreciation in vain.
3. As his own Principal belongs to another school of thought, the body’s article appears to challenge the Principal’s authority. The boy in his ‘loyalty’ to the elderly Principal comes forward to sacrifice his fame.

What should the boy do?

He should silently work, write article after article, and pass all the exams. Before he passes M.A., he will write a book and become famous. That MAY gain him his Principal’s appreciation. NO devotee has come forward for this patient, persistent work so far.

Prayer is human aspiration that fulfills the human need. Consecration is the Divine creation fulfilled in all human beings by the instrumentation of a single human soul. Prayer and consecration are the lower and higher ends of universal existence trying to fulfil the individual human need and the universal intention of the Divine.