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c c everything-from death and illness to the THE YOGA OF spiritual life-as she moves steadily forward SELF-PERFECTION to bring “something else” into manifes- tation. Her Agenda is indeed a “force in action,” and to read it is to be part of her overwhelming stride through the world. It is a radioactive, or perhaps better, The principle in view is a self-surrender, This outflowering has its two terms; “Shaktiactive ,” work. That it has now be- I giving up of the human being into the first, comes the growth out of the sep- gun to appear in America is not insignifi- reing, consciousness, power, delight of arative human ego into the unity of the cant given the role both Sri Aurobindo and he Divine, a union or communion at all spirit, then the possession of the divine the Mother said America has to play in the he points of meeting in the soul of man, nature in its proper and its higher forms evolution. he mental being, by which the Divine him- and no longer in the inferior forms of the Many of the pieces we have chosen for elf, directly and without veil master and mental being which are a mutilated trans- this issue of Collaboration touch upon )ossessor of the instrument, shall by the lation and not the authentic text of the ori- the great “yoga of self-perfection” which ight of his presence and guidance perfect ginal script of divine Nature in the cosmic Sri Aurobindo outlined in his Synthesis of he human being in all the forces of the individual. In other words, a perfection has Yoga and Mother undertook to live out in rlature for a divine living. Here we arrive to be aimed at which amounts to the eleva- her life. We have also included an extract It a farther enlargement of the objects of tion of the mental into the full spiritual from the first volume of her Agenda he Yoga. The common initial purpose of and supramental nature. Therefore this which gives some hint of the extraordinary 111 Yoga is the liberation of the soul of man of knowledge, love and “inner life” she had as well as something of iom its present natural ignorance and limi- works has to be extended into a Yoga of her nature in this embodiment. Also in- ation, its release into spiritual being, its spiritual and gnostic self-perfection. As cluded are an interview with mion with the highest self and Divinity. gnostic knowledge, will and Ananda are a which also reveals something of the Mother ht ordinarily this is made not only the direct instrumentation of spirit and can and her working, and Nolini’s “Great nitial but the whole and final object: en- only be won by growing into the spirit, Holocaust ,” which has appeared in these oyment of spiritual being there is, but into divine being, this growth has to be pages previously but which seems to be tither in a dissolution of the human and the first aim of our Yoga. The mental apropos now too. ndividual into the silence of self-being or being has to enlarge itself into the one- We are beginning also to publish ex- m a higher plane in another existence. The ness of the Divine before the Divine will tracts from a diary kept by a disciple which l’antric system makes liberation the final, perfect in the soul of the individual its throw some light on a particular phase in )ut not the only aim; it takes on its way a gnostic outflowering. That is the reason the history of the Ashram as well as on ‘ull perfection and enjoyment of the spiri- why the triple way of knowledge, works how one sadhak at least was caught “be- :ual power, light and joy in the human and love becomes the keynote of the whole tween two worlds.” zxistence, and even it has a glimpse of a Yoga, for that is the direct means for the Readers are invited to submit material ;upreme experience in which liberation and soul in mind to rise to its highest intensi- for Collaboration. We are interested in :osmic action and enjoyment are unified ties where it passes upward into the divine poetry and nonfiction, particularly articles m a final overcoming of all oppositions and oneness. That too is the reason why the or “reflections” on Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga, dissonances. It is this wider view of our Yoga must be integral. For if immergence etc. rpiritual potentialities from which we in the Infinite or some close union with the begin, but we add another stress which Divine were all our aim, an integral Yoga brings in a completer significance. We re- would be superfluous, except for such CONTENTS gard the spirit in man not as solely an in- dividual being traveling to a transcendent The Yoga of Self-Perfection, unity with the Divine, but as a universal Colkzboration (ISSN 0164-1522) is Sri Aurobindo being capable of oneness with the Divine in published quarterly by Matagiri Sri Auro- Self-Perfection, The Mother all souls and all Nature and we give this ex- bindo Center, Inc., Mt. Tremper, NY The Mother’s Nights and Her 4 tended view its entire practical conse- 12457, a nonprofit, tax-exempt organi- zation. @ 1981 by Matagiri Sri Aurobindo “Censor,” The Mother quence. The human soul’s individual liber- 5 Center, Inc. All passages from the works Notes on the Way (4), The Mother ation and enjoyment of union with the of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are Interview with Satprem 7 Divine in spiritual being, consciousness copyrighted by the The Great Holocaust, 10 and delight must always be the first object unless otherwise noted and are used here of the Yoga; its free enjoyment of the cos- with the kind permission of the Ashram. Between Two Worlds, Dick Batstone -10 mic unity of the Divine becomes a second A one-year subscription is $5.00; air- Expressions of object; but out of that a third appears, the mail abroad is $10.00 a year. All foreign Mother on Auroville ~12 effectuation of the meaning of the divine subscriptions should be paid for with a Progress (6) 12 unity with all beings by a sympathy and U.S. dollar draft on a New York bank or News of Auroville 16 participation in the spiritual purpose of an International Money Order. Some back 16 issues are available at $.50 each. Development of Alternative the Divine in humanity. The individual Larger contributions, all taxdeducti- Energy, Pierre LeGrand Yoga then turns from its separateness and ble, are welcome for the work of the cen- The Dreamer and the Materialist, -18 becomes a part of the collective Yoga of ter. In addition, contributions for the Sri Pierre LeGrand the divine Nature in the human race. Aurobindo Ashram and for’AurovilIe may General and Center News ~19 The liberated individual being, united with be made through Matagiri Sri Aurobindo The Task (poem), 19 the Divine in self and spirit, becomes in Center, Inc. Gordon Korstange his natural being a self-perfecting instru- Printed in the United States of Aphelion (poem), 19 ment for the perfect outflowering of the America. Gordon Korstange Divine in humanity.

2 greater satisfaction of the being of man as SELF-PERFECTION we may get by a self-lifting of the whole of The MO ther it towards its Source. But it would not be needed for the essential aim, since by any single power of the soul-nature we can Disciple: “To know oneself is to control It is never too soon to begin, never too meet with the Divine; each at its height oneself”: What does it mean? late to continue. That is to say, even when rises up into the infinite and absolute, each Mother: This means to be conscious of you are quite young, you can begin to therefore offers a sufficient way of arrival, one’s inner truth, conscious of the dif- study yourself and to know yourself and for all the hundred separate paths meet in ferent parts of one’s being and of their little by little to control yourself. And the Eternal. But the gnostic being is a com- respective working. One must know why even when you are what people call “old,” plete enjoyment and possession of the one does this, why one does that; one must when old many many years, it is not too whole divine and spiritual nature; and it is know one’s thoughts, know one’s feelings, late to make the effort to know yourself a complete lifting of the whole nature of know all one’s activities, all one’s move- better and better and to control yourself man into its power of a divine and spiritual movements, what one is capable of, etc. better and better. That is the science of existence. Integrality becomes then an And to know oneself is not sufficient; this living. essential condition of this yoga . . . . knowledge must lead to conscious control. To perfect yourself, you must first of ***** To know oneself perfectly means to con- all become conscious of yourself. I am trol oneself perfectly. sure, for example, that the following inci- But one must have an aspiration every dent must have happened to you many A divine perfection of the human being moment of one’s life. times in your life. All of a sudden someone is our aim. We must know then, first, what asks you, “Why have you done that?” Well, are the essential elements that constitute religious aim, on the contrary, fixes before the spontaneous answer is “I do not man’s total perfection; secondly, what we it the self-preparation for another exis- know.” If someone asks you, “What were mean by a divine as distinguished from a tence after death, its commonest ideal is you thinking about?” you answer, “I do human perfection of our being. That man some kind of pure sainthood, its means a not know. ” “Why are you tired?“-“1 do as a being is capable of self-development conversion of the imperfect or sinful not know .” “Why are you glad?“-“1 do and of some approach at least to an ideal human being by divine grace or through not know ,” and so on. I may take indeed standard of perfection which his mind is obedience to a law laid down by a scripture fifty persons and ask them all of a sudden able to conceive, fix before it and pursue, or else given by a religious founder. The without preparation, “Why have you done is common ground to all thinking hu- aim of religion may include a social change, that? ,” and if they are not “awake” with- manity, though it may be only the minor- but it is then a change brought about by in, all will reply, “I do not know” (natur- ity who concern themselves with this possi- the acceptance of a common religious ideal ally, I do not speak of those who have bility as providing the one most important and way of consecrated living, a brother- undergone a discipline for knowing them- aim of life. But by some the ideal is con- hood of the saints, a theocracy or kingdom selves and for following their movements ceived as a mundane change, by others as of God reflecting on earth the kingdom of to the extreme limit; they of course can a religious conversion. heaven. collect themselves and concentrate and give The mundane perfection is sometimes The object of our synthetic Yoga must, the right answer, but only after a time). conceived of as something outward, social, in this respect too as in its other parts, be You will see that it is like that, if you look a thing of action, a more rational dealing more integral and comprehensive, embrace at your whole day. You say something and with our fellow-men and our environment, all these elements or these tendencies of a you do not know why you say so-it is a better and more efficient citizenship and larger impules of self-perfection and har- only when the words have gone out of discharge of duties, a better, richer, kind- monise them or rather unify, and in order your mouth that you perceive that is was lier and happier way of living, with a more to do that successfully it must seize on a not quite what you wanted to say. For just and more harmonious associated en- truth which is wider than the ordinary reli- example, you go to see someone, you pre- joyment of the opportunities of existence. gious and higher than the mundane prin- pare in advance the words you are going to By others again a more inner and subjective ciple. All life is a secret Yoga, an obscure say, but once before the person in ques- ideal is cherished, a clarifying and raising growth of Nature towards the discovery tion, you say nothing or it is other words of the intelligence, will and reason, a and fulfilment of the divine principle hid- that come out of your mouth. Are you heightening and ordering of power and ca- den in her which becomes progressively less able to say to what extent the atmosphere pacity in the nature, a nobler ethical, a obscure, more self-conscient and luminous: of the other person has influenced you and richer aesthetic, a finer emotional, a much more self-possessed in the human being by prevented you from saying what you had healthier and better-governed vital and the opening of all his instruments 01 prepared? How many people are able to physical being. Sometimes one element is knowledge, will, action, life to the Spiril say that? They do not perceive even that stressed, almost to the exclusion of the within him and in the world. Mind, life the person was in such or such a state and rest; sometimes, in wider and more well- body, all the forms of our nature are the that was why they could not tell him what balanced minds, the whole harmony is en- means of this growth, but they find thei they had prepared. Naturally there are ob- visaged as a total perfection. A change of last perfection only by opening out tc vious cases when you find people in such education and social institutions is the out- something beyond them, first, because bad humour that you can ask them ward means adopted or an inner self-train- they are not the whole of what man is nothing. I do not speak of that. I speak of ing and development is preferred as the secondly, because that other something a clear perception of mutual influences, true instrumentation. Or the two aims may which he is, is the key of his completenes; what acts and reacts upon your nature-it be clearly united, the perfection of the and brings a light which discovers to hin is this that one doesn’t have. For example, inner individual, the perfection of the the whole high and large reality of hi you are suddenly uneasy or happy, but outer living. being. [From The Synthesis of Yoga (Bon how many people can say, “It is like that”? But the mundane aim takes for its field dicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1971) And it is difficult to know, it is not at all the present life and its opportunities; the pp. 586-91.1 easy. One must be “awake” very much; one must be constantly in a state to ob- THE MOTHER’S NIGHTS AND HER “CENSOR’ serve with great attention. The Mother There are people who sleep twelve hours daily and say the rest of the time, “I am My nights contain so many things that I It always gives me the feeling that I am awake”! There are people who sleep don’t always do the necessary work to re- shrinking a little, but it3 interesting. And twenty hours per day and the rest of the member-that takes up a lot of time. Some- it’s useful, for I am constantly moving time half awake! times I get up during the night and sit there about and doing things with people; it To be in this state in which you observe recalling precisely everything that has al- indicates to me what I have to say and do attentively you must have so to say anten- ready happened, but that sometimes takes with each one. It’s useful. But all the same, nae everywhere that are in constant con- half an hour!-and as urgent work still I miss the fullness and joy of the more im- tact with your centre of true conscious- calls, I don’t take the time to remember personal Movement of forces. ness. You record everything, you organise and it gets erased. But then you know, Before going to bed, sometimes I say to everything and, in this way, you cannot be with all that’s coming you could write myself, “I will do what is necessary to taken unawares, you cannot be deceived, volumes! spend my night in these great currents of mistaken, and you cannot say any other From a documentary standpoint, my force (because there is a way to do it). And thing than what you wanted to say. But nights are getting quite interesting. In the then I think, “Oh, what an egotist you are, how many people live in this state “Yoga of Self-Perfection” [in The Synthe- my girl!” So sometimes it happens, some- normally? That is what I mean to say sis of Yoga] , Sri Aurobindo describes pre- times it doesn’t-when there’s something exactly when I speak of “becoming con- cisely this state you reach in which all important to do, it doesn’t happen. But all scious.” If you want to derive the greatest things assume meaning and a quality of I have to do is concentrate in a certain way profit out of the conditions and circum- inner significance, clarification of various before going to sleep to spend my whole stances in which you find yourself, you points, and help. From this point of view, night in these . . . very far from here, very must be fully awake; you must not be my nights have become extraordinary. I see far . . I can’t say very far from the earth, taken by surprise. You must not do things infinitely more things that I saw before. for surely it’s in an be- without knowing why, you must not say Before, it was very limited to a personal tween the forces from above and the things without knowing why. One must be contact with people. Now . . . In my earth’s atmosphere. That’s what it mainly constantly awake. nights, each thing and each person has the is, in any case. It’s a great universal current You must understand also that you are appearance, the gesture, the word or the as well, but mainly it’s what descends and not separate individualities, and that life action that describes exacti” his condition. comes into the earth, and it is permeating is a ceaseless exchange of forces, of con- It’s becoming quite interesting. the earth’s atmosphere all the time, all the sciousnesses , of vibrations and of move- Of course, I much prefer being in my time, and it comes with this wide, overall ments of all kinds. It is as in a crowd; great currents of force-from a personal vision-it makes for wonderful nights. . . . where everyone pushes, everyone goes for- standpoint, such immensity of action is I no longer bother about people at all- ward, and when all go backward, everyone much more interesting. But these docu- at least not as such, but in a more im- goes backward. It is the same thing in the mentary things are also valuable. It is SO personal way. [silence] inner world, in your consciousness. Con- tremendously different from the dreams I have been pestered my whole life stantly there are forces and influences that and even the visions you have when you by . . . something similar to the sense of act and react upon you, it is like a gas in enter certain representative realms of the duty without its stupidity. Sri Aurobindo the atmosphere, and unless you are quite mind (which is what I used to do). It is had told me that it was a “censor,” that I awake, these things enter into you and so different, it has another content, had with me a “considerable” one! It was it is only when they have entered well into another life altogether: it carries its light, constantly, constantly telling me, “No, it’s you and come out as if they were from you its understanding, its explanation within it- not like that, it’s like this . . . Oh, no! It’s that you are aware of them. How often do self-you look, and everything is explained. wrong to do that; be careful, don’t be ego- men meet people who are nervous, full of [Continued on following page] anger and bad mood, like that, without knowing why. How is it that when you without being aware of it at all. Collective lieve, do you not, that you think all that play against some persons you play very thought, collective suggestions is a formid- you say! It is not at all the case, you will well, and when you play against others you able influence, acting constantly on indi- see that so many times the word you do are unable to play? And people who are vidual thought. And what is extraordinary not want to say is ready to come out, but quiet, not wicked, who suddenly become is that one is not aware of it. You think you are obliged to make a conscious ef- furious when they are in the midst of a that you are thinking like that, but in fort to stop it from coming out. furious crowd? And one does not know reality it is the collectivity that thinks I knew people who were very scrupu- who started the thing; it is a thing that like that. The mass is always inferior to lous about telling a lie, but when directly passed by and swept the consciousness. the individual. Take individuals of like they are in a group instead of saying the There are people who are capable of re- category, well, when they are alone, they truth, they tell a lie spontaneously. They leasing vibrations like that and others are at least two degrees higher than people did not intend to do so, but it came respond without knowing why. Everything of the same category that are in a crowd. “like that.” Why? Because they were in the is like that, from the smallest to the There is a mixture of things obscure and company of liars: there was an atmosphere biggest. unconscious and you slip inevitably into of falsehood and they simply caught the To be individualised in a collectivity, the unconscious. To escape from that, malady! one must be absolutely conscious of one- there is only one means; to become con- It is in this way that little by little, self. And of what self? The Self above all scious of oneself, more and more conscious slowly, with perseverance, first of all with mixture, that is to say, what I call the and more and more attentive. great care and attention, one becomes con- Truth of your being. And so long as you Try to do this little exercise: at the be- scious, learns to know oneself and after- are not conscious of the Truth of your ginning of the day, say, “I will not speak wards to become master of oneself. [Bulle- being, you are moved by all sorts of things without thinking of what I say.” You be- tin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, February 1964, pp. 4551.1 4

adventurous in Mother and Sri Aurobindo something. There is a change in percep- Lui: Y OU were the friend, the confi- is that they did not seek to conduct their tion, in their way of seeing: the hope for dant of the Mother. Who was she? experiment in some “up above” or in an a new, more transparent perception of Satprem: Mother came to in 1914. established religion. They did not believe in She had a rather strange background. Her the heaven of a would-be liberated yogi father was Turkish, her mother Egyptian, any more than in our hygienic heaven and they both lived at the court of the which is at present suffocating us. They Khedive in . But one day, her mother wanted to experiment in their own earthly v refused to bow down before the Khedive, bodies, in the very midst of evolution. and she and her husband had to leave Without microscopes, without test tubes Egypt. So Mother was born in in and telescopes and rockets, they were de- 1878, on the Boulevard Haussmann. She termined to explore Matter itself, and that knew Renoir, Manet, Sisley, and Rodin is where they went! They thus discovered quite well. . . . She lived in Paris when a new mental vibration. And the fact of Fauvism and cubism were born. What discovering another state of consciousness stories she told us! She was a wonderful deep within themselves, deep within their storyteller! As an adolescent, she had bodies, within their very cells, is bound to rather bizarre experiences; she would feel transform the world’s condition. Mother herself going out of her body, spreading and Sri Aurobindo tried to open up for us wide in space, but she did not understand a passage to another stage of evolution. For what was going on within her. She was 20 we are, I believe, on the eve of a great up- when Einstein formulated his theories on heaval. . . . the equivalence of matter and energy, and Lui: By that, do you mean a reversal of on relativity. Mother was like a cyclone consciousness? .can .. discernWhich new dimensions. one and, basically, very Occidental: an extra- Satprem: day our children will live. ordinary force in action. . . . Lui: But what do you feel when you Mother lived an experience that had have such an experience, when you enter nothing to do with intellect, sects, “spiri- into real matter? Is the word “matter” tuality”. . . . She lived it right to the end, really the right one? until her ninety-fifth year. She never Satprem: Matter as we know it is some- stopped. Three days before her death, and Lui: thing quite different from what it really is. right to her last breath, she said, “Help me The most accurate word would be “en- to walk. I want to walk . . .” Mother told Satprem: ergy.” Or even “consciousness-energy.” In us that Sri Aurobindo had come to ac- India they speak of the “shakti.” . . . complish a work that concerns the entire It’s an incredible current! It is the very es- terrestrial evolution. . . . With her I under- sence of what we call matter. When Mother stood that I had to set out towards he “fu- began experiencing this cellular conscious- ture of man.” ness, she said that once you have traversed Lui: But how does this experiment all the layers of evolution and come to express itself practically? matter as it really is, you perceive waves Satprem: First of all, let’s keep it sim- vibrating “at lightning speed within total ple: we must try to bring more conscious- immobility.” When that happens, “you” ness, more transparency, into each move- and “I” are no longer two different things ment of our lives. At each second I am pre- but one tremendous current. . . . occupied with being as fully “open” as Lui: By living closely with the animals, possible, with more fully perceiving the did you discover the power that lies behind surface falsehood and illusion. If that But in this world visibly governed instinct? second is lived fully, all the rest auto- by violence, desire for power or money, Satprem: We humans talk of “instinct” matically follows from it. Then things isn’t it an illusion to think we are living when we speak of the species other than appear with a kind of self-evidence. And through a transitional stage that is leading man. We say that what drives a bird from even suffering loses its reality. I don’t even man to a higher level? Siberia to his tropical lagoon is instinct. know what sickness means any longer. precisely. We areBut it doesn’tstarting work like that. In fact, the What interests me is this pulsation or to doubt ourselves. The walls are beginning tropics and Siberia, and the entire map of this respiration beating within me when I to crack. Everyone is feeling that our usual the world, unfold . , . within the bird. He walk, when I live, when I contemplate na- solutions are no longer effective. We are does not fly above the environment and ture . _ . or when I go in an elevator: a kind realizing just how broke we are. What we look at it from on high; rather, it is some- of immediate density, a sensation of har- are witnessing is not the end of a civiliza- thing that happens inside him. In this same mony. The touchstone is the present tion, but rather of a cycle in the paleon- way, each species goes towards its own second: how it is lived, the way one “is” tological or geological sense. There is some- work and its own goals, each is harmonious in that second, seeking a new depth. I do thing going on we don’t know about. in its own way: the human species is not not hide behind “explanatory systetns.” Millions of men-bombarded, ripped apart yet so. But as I said before, what Mother for those who have made this experiment, by contradictory information-are asking and Sri Aurobindo discovered was a tre- it is very simple. . . . And they come to new and painful questions: “What is the mendous level, this new, cellular conscious- realize that their bodies know more about meaning of all this?” Theyness within feel us, whichthat as yetthe we hardly it than they do. .what it should be, that what know.... I think that evolution is the dis- One day, for example, I was walking they have been taught has no relation to covery of what man is. Each progress of along the eroded canyons near Auroville, reality. They are reaching out, calling for the species is a step towards the reality of I was attacked by three ruffians who, as what “is.” 8