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| And Savitri heard the voice, the warped echo heard And turning to her being of power she spoke: “Madonna of might, Mother of works and force, Thou art a portion of my soul put forth To help mankind and help the travail of Time. Because thou art in him, man hopes and dares; Because thou art, men’s souls can climb the heavens And walk like gods in the presence of the Supreme. But without wisdom power is like a wind, It can breathe upon the heights and kiss the sky, It cannot build the extreme eternal things. Thou hast given men strength, wisdom thou couldst not give. One day I will return, a bringer of light; Then will I give to thee the mirror of God; Thou shalt see self and world as by him they are seen Reflected in the bright pool of thy soul. Thy wisdom shall be vast as vast thy power. Then hate shall dwell no more in human hearts, And fear and weakness shall desert men’s lives, The cry of the ego shall be hushed within, Its lion roar that claims the world as food, All shall be might and bliss and happy force.” Sri Aurobindo Savitri, Book VII, Canto IV, pages 513 – 514 |
| What I want of you besides aspiring for faith? Well, just a little thoroughness and persistence in the method! Don’t aspire for two days and then sink into the dumps, evolving a gospel of earthquake and Schopenhauer plus the jackal and all the rest of it. Give the Divine a full sporting chance. When he lights something in you or is preparing a light, don’t come in with a wet blanket of despondency and throw it on the poor flame. You will say it is a mere candle that is lit — nothing at all? But in these matters, when the darkness of human mind and life and body has to be dissipated, a candle is always a beginning — a lamp can follow and afterwards a sun — but the beginning must be allowed to have a sequel — not get cut off from its natural sequelae by chinks of sadness and doubt and despair. At the beginning and for a long time the experiences do usually come in little quanta with empty spaces between — but, if allowed their way, the spaces will diminish and the quantum theory give way to the Newtonian continuity of the spirit. But you have never yet given it a real chance. The empty spaces have become peopled with doubts and denials and so the quanta have become rare, the beginnings remain beginnings. Other difficulties you have faced and rejected, but this difficulty you dandled too much for a long time and it has become strong — it must be dealt with by a persevering effort. I do not say that all doubts must disappear before anything comes — that would be to make sadhana impossible, for doubt is the mind’s persistent assailant. All I say is, don’t allow the assailant to become a companion, don’t give him the open door and the fireside seat. Above all don’t drive away the incoming Divine with that dispiriting wet blanket of sadness and despair!
To put it more soberly, — accept once for all that this thing has to be done, that it is the only thing left for yourself or the earth. Outside are earthquakes and Hitlers and a collapsing civilisation and — generally speaking — the jackal in the food? All the more reason to tend towards the one thing to be done, the thing you have been sent to aid in getting done. It is difficult and the way long and the encouragement given meagre? What then? Why should you expect so great a thing to be easy or that there must be either a swift success or none? The difficulties have to be faced and the more cheerfully they are faced, the sooner they will be overcome. The one thing to do is to keep the mantra of success, the determination of victory, the fixed resolve, “Have it I must and have it I will.” Impossible? There is no such thing as an impossibility — there are difficulties and things of longue haleine, but no impossibles. What one is determined fixedly to do, will get done now or later — it becomes possible. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga II, pages 115 – 116 |
| All extracts and quotations from the written works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are copyright Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Pondicherry -605002 India |