February 1, 2012 – What is one to do to prepare oneself for the Yoga?

In our sorrowful age, almost withered by the excessive domination of the intellect,
nothing can be at once more necessary and more precious than Divine Love.
In former times there was a noble form of asseveration for souls compact merely of force and action,
“As surely as God liveth.”
But for our modern needs another asseveration would suit better,
“As surely as God loveth.”

Sri Aurobindo

(Thoughts and Aphorisms 503)

What is one to do to prepare oneself for the Yoga?

To be conscious, first of all. We are conscious of only an insignificant portion of our being; for the most part we are unconscious. It is this unconsciousness that keeps us down to our unregenerate nature and prevents change and transformation in it. It is through unconsciousness that the undivine forces enter into us and make us their slaves. You are to be conscious of yourself,you must awake to your nature and movements, you must know why and how you do things or feel or think them; you must understand your motives and impulses, the forces, hidden and apparent, that move you; in fact, you must, as it were,take to pieces the entire machinery of your being. Once you are conscious, it means that you can distinguish and sift things, you can see which are the forces that pull you down and which help you on. And when you know the right from the wrong, the true from the false, the divine from the undivine, you are to act strictly up to your knowledge; that is to say, resolutely reject one and accept the other. The duality will present itself at every step and at every step you will have to make your choice. You will have to be patient and persistent and vigilant—“sleepless”, as the adepts say; you must always refuse to give any chance whatever to the undivine against the divine

The Mother

CWM VOL 3, page 2