The Synthesis of Yoga - Super school Auroville - The Synthesis of Yoga 1202

Sri Aurobindo says: “His system is a natural organisation of the highest processes and movements of which the nature is capable.” This sentence is central to the whole thing. If you want to develop other systems of education in the world this sentence should be your guideline. Do not prescribe any specific method of teaching. You take your students as they come, see for each one what are the combinations of his or her psychological functioning and see how each one can be lifted up to the highest. Therefore the system will be highly individualised and yet there can be common ways by which the ‘irrigation’ can take place. There are certain forces which are so generated that each individual will approach automatically in his own way just as every tree moves towards the sun. Sun is placed as one general attraction as it were, one magnet, and each plant, each organism in the world approaches the sunlight and tries to reach the sunlight in his own way. Similarly a good teacher puts up certain magnets over the students and then every student will approach, that magnet or those magnets are of such a nature, that they will act upon each individual individually. It will automatically form combinations, psychological methods by which they can grow to the highest. And then “applying themselves even to the pettiest details and to the actions the most insignificant in their appearance with as much care and thoroughness as to the greatest, they in the end lift all into the Light and transform all.” Pettiest details. There is a beautiful poem of Sri Aurobindo where he says that one who sends Jupiter spinning in the spheres and whatever care he takes in doing so, whatever might he employs in sending Jupiter spinning, the same amount of care, the same amount of might and care he uses in fashioning a curl of the hair. How your hair will curl that also requires artistry and supreme artistry. Both of them are equal in his consciousness: sending Jupiter in the spheres on one hand and fashioning the curl of a child. Both are equal in his omnipotent consciousness.

I had one very interesting example: the Mother as the Supreme Teacher. I had the privilege of taking children’s letters to the Mother from time to time and I used to read out the letter to the Mother. I also used to take down some letters even from the Prime Minister. And I could see the same care she would take while reading the letter from the Prime Minister and letter from the child. It was not as if the children letters are less important and the Prime Minister’s letter is more important -- equal care, equal attention. I give you one example, one day one child had written: “I am going to finish my third year of the higher course.” So she had written “mon troisième année”. This is grammatically not correct and when I read that letter Mother said, “give it to me”, it was in 1973, she was ninety-five years old at that time and people used to say that she does not see, she does not hear but this was completely false because I can tell you that I read it myself and Mother said: “Donne moi le papier” -- “Give me the paper” -- and she said where has she written “mon troisième année”-- So I showed her and she said -- write “ma troisième année”. And she corrected it herself and she said, when you give the letter to her you explain to her that année is feminine, mon année is correct because of pronunciation but not because of grammar, it is ma troisième année grammatically. This was the care that Mother took to explain to the child and there were so many other important letters with me, but no, this was very important. Applying herself to every minor detail with as much care as the other one. Actually if you saw how Mother was working among all the children, among all the people and also world events, how she found time for everything, what kind of organization, it was unimaginable, amazing, in fact. The Mother at work was the Supreme Karma Yogin, one who knows what is the real action, what is the right action, what is the measure of action, how much care is needed.

I had once taken to her a problem, which was a very simple problem outwardly. We had a delegation coming from the Government of India and I was in charge of the delegation and then we have a problem, which was not a problem normally, but it was a problem. They were all to sit together in the dining hall and the question was who will sit where? Normally this problem does not even get attention, is not even mentioned, people come pell-mell and sit anywhere, so when I told the Mother about it she said: “Be very careful who will sit where. Tell me now.” She drew the table herself on a paper and she asked how many of them are there and I said about fifteen people. She decided who will sit where with whom. And knowing each one, whether that person can talk or will remain quiet -- because all people cannot talk, they don’t have equal capacity of talking and even if they talk one has to be careful in talking — what kind of talk it will be, some people are so boisterous that they might spoil the whole atmosphere, some people might not talk at all and there are some people in the Ashram who do not know how to talk at a dinner party. And Mother knew everyone so well that she told me you put this person here, this person here… What a tremendous care. It was not just something to be thrown out, just to be done: here is the dining table, people will come, pell-mell they sit, you chat and then disperse. Every activity has importance, significance. Every person sitting next to another is important. It is like organising the whole universe and the stars. If the sun was slightly nearer to the earth what would have happened? If the sun was slightly farther than where it is, what would happen to the earth? It will be so cold that we couldn’t survive. If it was slightly nearer the whole earth would be blazed, we could not live. It is the exact measurement. In the Divine organisation of things everything is so situated, so measured, one can even says that God is a great geometrician; he is a master of geometry. All the measurements are so beautifully done, such proportion, in every minute detail and even in the greatest, the largest movements the Divine intervention, wisdom is at work equally. Sri Aurobindo says, “For in his Yoga there is nothing too small to be used and nothing too great to be attempted.” Therefore attention has to be equal. This is the second point to be mentioned.