December 7, 2011 – A Very Tiny Serpent II

What is vice but an enslaving habit and virtue but a human opinion?
See God and do His will;
walk in whatever path He shall trace for thy goings.

Sri Aurobindo

(Thoughts and Aphorisms 514)

A Very Tiny Serpent II

And then there are two methods: either to put so intense a light, the light of a truth-consciousness so strong, that this tiny serpent will be dissolved; or else to catch the thing as with pincers, pull it out from its place and hold it up before one’s consciousness. The first method is radical but one doesn’t always have at his disposal this light of truth, so one can’t always use it. The second method can be taken, but it hurts, it hurts as badly as the extraction of a tooth; I don’t know if you have ever had a tooth pulled out, but it hurts as much as that, and it hurts here, like that. (Mother shows the centre of the chest and makes a movement of twisting). And usually one is not very courageous. When it hurts very much, well, one tries to efface it like this (gesture) and that is why things persist. But if one has the courage to take hold of it and pull it until it comes out and to put it before himself, even if it hurts very much… to hold it up like this (gesture) until one can see it clearly, and then dissolve it, then it is finished.

The Mother

The Great Adventure: Page 69