May 13 – Duty towards the Divine and Others

What is this thing thou callest death?
Can God die?
O thou who fearest death,
it is Life that has come to thee sporting with a death-head and wearing a mask of terror.

Sri Aurobindo

(Thoughts and Aphorisms 374)

Duty towards the Divine and Others

Duty towards the Divine is far more sacred than any social or family duty; it is all the more sacred because within the human collectivity it is almost wholly ignored or misunderstood.

One who has given himself to the Divine has no longer any other duty than to make that consecration more and more perfect. The world and those who live in it have always wanted to put human – social and family – duty before duty to the Divine, which they have stigmatised as egoism. How indeed could they judge otherwise, they who have no experience of the reality of the Divine? But for the divine regard their opinion has no value, their will has no force. These are movements of ignorance, nothing more. You should not attempt to convince; above all, you should not let yourself be touched or shaken. You must shut yourself carefully within your ivory tower of consecration and await from the Divine alone help, protection, guidance and approbation. To be condemned by the whole world is nothing to him who knows that he has the approval of the Divine and his support.

Besides, has not mankind proved its utter incompetence in the organisation of its own existence? Governments succeed governments, regimes follow regimes, centuries pass after centuries, but human misery remains lamentably the same. It will always be so, as long as man remains what he is, blind and ignorant, closed to all spiritual reality. A transformation, an illumination of the human consciousness alone can bring about a real amelioration in the condition of humanity. Thus even from the standpoint of human life, it follows logically that the first duty of man is to seek and possess the divine consciousness.

– The Mother
CWM Vol 14, Page 306

All extracts and quotations from the written works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are copyright Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Pondicherry -605002 India
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