May 16, 2012 – Spiritual Life and Morality

Men are still in love with grief;
when they see one who is too high for grief or joy,
they curse him and cry,
“O thou insensible!”
Therefore Christ still hangs on the cross in Jerusalem

Sri Aurobindo

(Thoughts and Aphorisms 36)

Spiritual Life and Morality

The spiritual life, the life of Yoga, has for its object to grow into the divine consciousness and for its result to purify, intensify, glorify and perfect what is in you. It makes you a power for manifesting the Divine; it raises the character of each personality to its full value and brings it to its maximum expression; for this is part of the Divine plan. Morality proceeds by a mental construction and, with a few ideas of what is good and what is not, sets up an ideal type into which all must force themselves… The spiritual life reveals the one essence in all, but reveals too its infinite diversity; it works for diversity in oneness and for perfection in that diversity. Morality lifts up one artificial standard contrary to the variety of life and the freedom of the spirit. Creating something mental, fixed and limited, it asks all to conform to it. All must labour to acquire the same qualities and the same ideal nature. Morality is not divine or of the Divine; it is of man and human.

The Mother

The Great Adventure, P 27