Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Triple Transformation - Track 1005

 Questions & Answers

Question: We are human and very sensitive about small things and expectations arise in our mind. We know it is wrong to expect, but how do we protect ourselves from these things? We live in an environment where there is a constant give and take. How do we rise above all things?

Your question is a most difficult question because it relates to an assumption that even when you know that you want to go out, you are where you are and you want to face the problem as it is, and that is the difficulty. As long as you want to remain what you are and yet you want to solve the problem that is difficult. Expect everything from God. You have a legitimate right to expect everything from God.

Question:  I hear all these things and decide to change myself. But when the situation arises, I expect and when the expectations are not met, I get irritated. Afterwards, I realize, I really did not want to do it that way.

You know, of all small things of which you are speaking, there is one very strong remedy: just kick them. This is what Sri Aurobindo wrote in one of his letters; just kick them because to justify, not to justify that itself is useless, meaningless. These small things should have no place at all, just kick them when they come or if they have occurred then just kick them, even in thought, saying that "this should not happen at all" and I am not going to justify it nor defend it nor in anyway support it. It is just to be kicked away. And once you have done it twice, thrice, four times, they won't repeat. But they require a real kick, just kick them away.

Question:  When you try to go within yourself, first all the problems come in the mind. Then a stage comes when you are really peaceful. Then suddenly why do you become very conscious of yourself again, fidgety etc.?

Yes, because it means there is a resistance in your system or there is a certain limit of your ability to receive. If not resistance, it is a limitation to receive. That can be overcome only by repeated exercises of this kind. But always be very charitable to yourself.

Question:  This exercise of walking in a garden, imagining that you are walking in a cave. Is this a kind of an escape or by repeatedly doing it, does it become a part of you?

It is not an escape. That is why I said that whatever you want to do please first do everything so that you are not anxious about anything. Find at least a day or so in a month when you have really done everything that you ought to have done. Organise your life in such a way that you really find that everything that is demanded of you, you have done, so you are not escaping from anything. You should not be haunted by this idea that you are escaping from something. It is to find time to be with yourself and with God which is the most important meeting in our life. All other meetings, all other activities are of lesser importance. This is the most important meeting. For that you must organise your life in such a way that you find time for it. So finish everything that you want to do, just as when you have to go for a dinner-party you finish everything so that you can really have a good party. Similarly you organise your life in such a way that you are just going to be with yourself and with God. Then there is no sense of escape and if you repeat it, then you will find the deeper experiences of this leisureliness. Actually garden I spoke of because all the trees, plants, flowers ... Mother said that they are constantly in a state of prayer. You may not know, they may not know. Plants are not conscious but they are constantly in a state of prayer. This is a natural grace on them. Actually you might say that the plants, flowers, trees are constantly in a state of prayer. It is like a small child, you know if you tell a small child "Pray to God" and he takes it very seriously; more seriously than you or anybody else and he really goes on praying, similarly these plants have been told to pray and they have taken this kind of a command and they are constantly doing it and there is no respite from it. It is not as if one day they will stop, this is the only natural breathing of the plants. So if you are in company of plants and trees and flowers then you have the best company of constant prayers and sincere prayers, unartificial prayers which are constantly rising upwards to the Divine, therefore I spoke of walking in the garden.