The Synthesis of Yoga (2000-2001, Super school, Auroville) - Session 16 (16 January 2001)
The sadhaka of the integral Yoga will make use of all these aids according to his nature; but it is necessary that he should shun their limitations and cast from himself that exclusive tendency of egoistic mind which cries, “My God, my Incarnation, my Prophet, my Guru,” and opposes it to all other realisation in a sectarian or a fanatical spirit. All sectarianism, all fanaticism must be shunned; for it is inconsistent with the integrity of the divine realisation.
Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids
What are all these aids? Sri Aurobindo has said that the Divine himself is the teacher but human nature being what it is, with its limitations, we may conceive of many others first such as ishta devata. The words Ishta devata mean favourite God. Some may consider Ganapati as ishta devata, or Shiva or Vishnu or Durga according to our nature one or another becomes the one we desire and worship. Favourite means one in whose image we would like to be moulded. You would like to be like him or like her. If I am a worshipper of Durga I would like to be like Durga, if I am a worshiper of Shiva I would like to be like Shiva. When you admire, you like to become. Admiration, adoration, these are the first steps but you become satisfied only when you become like that which you admire. That is ishta devata. You may consider ishta devata as your guru, as your teacher or you may like an incarnation to be your guru — either Christ or Buddha or Krishna or Rama as guru — or you may like a Prophet as your guru. There is a difference between an incarnation and a prophet. Incarnation is the one in whom the Divine himself descends; a Prophet is a very great man who has contact with the Divine but in whom Divine himself has not descended. Like Mohammed is a prophet. So you may like to have ishta devata as your teacher or you may like an incarnation to be your teacher or you may like a prophet to be your teacher or you may like a human being as your teacher. These are all the aids.
On the contrary, the sadhaka of the integral Yoga will not be satisfied until he has included all other names and forms of Deity in his own conception, seen his own Ishta Devata in all others, unified all Avatars in the unity of Him who descends in the Avatar, welded the truth in all teachings into the harmony of the Eternal Wisdom.
Nor should he forget the aim of these external aids which is to awaken his soul to the Divine within him. Nothing has been finally accomplished if that has not been accomplished. It is not sufficient to worship Krishna, Christ or Buddha without, if there is not the revealing and the formation of the Buddha, the Christ or Krishna in ourselves. And all other aids equally have no other purpose; each is a bridge between man’s unconverted state and the revelation of the Divine within him.
Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids
We have now a full description of our teacher: first that the Divine himself is our teacher; secondly that he has no method and every method and that his system varies according to each one nature; thirdly that he is a teacher who teaches by suggestion and not by imposition, he teaches by his own example and he teaches by his own influence, influence that proceeds from the closeness of his being with our own being; and that his entire aim is to take us through the vicissitude of experiences, varieties of experiences so that you may awake, which is the central thing — awakening. The Divine Teacher awakes to his presence, to his working in the world, his hand in everything that happens to you whether success or failure, stumbling or fall or catastrophe or glory. Unveiling of the Divine in you is what the Divine ultimately aims and accomplishes. But since it is difficult for the human being to open directly to the Divine Teacher there are other aids: ishta devata, incarnations, prophet or a human teacher. In any case the important thing is that the teacher must awaken and that awakening is to the integral Divine who is not limited to one form or another form, to one ishta devata or another but includes all so that once again we can say that our teacher is the Supreme Lord who is the Teacher of all.
Now is the description of the human teacher because that is easier for human beings to obtain rather than the Supreme Teacher directly.
“The Teacher of the integral Yoga will follow as far as he may the method of the Teacher within us. He will lead the disciple through the nature of the disciple.”
This is the ultimate justification of what we call a free progress system. Since everyone has a different nature the system or the method will be such as to be suitable to each one, to his own nature. Even when there is a collective class like this he looks upon each one differently and he addresses in such a way that each one can derive, according to his own nature, what is suitable for him or to her.
The Teacher of the integral Yoga will follow as far as he may the method of the Teacher within us. He will lead the disciple through the nature of the disciple. Teaching, example, influence,—these are the three instruments of the Guru. But the wise Teacher will not seek to impose himself or his opinions on the passive acceptance of the receptive mind; he will throw in only what is productive and sure as a seed which will grow under the divine fostering within. He will seek to awaken much more than to instruct; he will aim at the growth of the faculties and the experiences by a natural process and free expansion. He will give a method as an aid, as a utilisable device, not as an imperative formula or a fixed routine. And he will be on his guard against any turning of the means into a limitation, against the mechanising of process. His whole business is to awaken the divine light and set working the divine force of which he himself is only a means and an aid, a body or a channel.
Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids
He does not become a propagandist. A good teacher is not a propagandist; he does not make any propaganda. He does not want his opinions should be accepted by his pupils.
The Teacher of the integral Yoga will follow as far as he may the method of the Teacher within us. He will lead the disciple through the nature of the disciple. Teaching, example, influence,—these are the three instruments of the Guru. But the wise Teacher will not seek to impose himself or his opinions on the passive acceptance of the receptive mind; he will throw in only what is productive and sure as a seed which will grow under the divine fostering within. He will seek to awaken much more than to instruct; he will aim at the growth of the faculties and the experiences by a natural process and free expansion. He will give a method as an aid, as a utilisable device, not as an imperative formula or a fixed routine. And he will be on his guard against any turning of the means into a limitation, against the mechanising of process. His whole business is to awaken the divine light and set working the divine force of which he himself is only a means and an aid, a body or a channel.
Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids
It is a very important statement. The task of the teacher is only to throw a few seeds in the soil of the child and then it is the divine who will foster, it is the Divine himself who will water the seeds so that they will grow and become a tree. “He will seek to awaken much more than to instruct…”This is the mark of a good teacher. He does not like to instruct, he does like to say do this, do that. He might do it but much more important for him is to awaken.
The Teacher of the integral Yoga will follow as far as he may the method of the Teacher within us. He will lead the disciple through the nature of the disciple. Teaching, example, influence,—these are the three instruments of the Guru. But the wise Teacher will not seek to impose himself or his opinions on the passive acceptance of the receptive mind; he will throw in only what is productive and sure as a seed which will grow under the divine fostering within. He will seek to awaken much more than to instruct; he will aim at the growth of the faculties and the experiences by a natural process and free expansion. He will give a method as an aid, as a utilisable device, not as an imperative formula or a fixed routine. And he will be on his guard against any turning of the means into a limitation, against the mechanising of process. His whole business is to awaken the divine light and set working the divine force of which he himself is only a means and an aid, a body or a channel.
Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids
There are many courses in the world for education: bachelor of education, master of education… If all the courses are distilled and made as briefest possible — this paragraph is enough. All the courses of education ultimately can be reduced to this. If you master this one paragraph I will give you a B. Ed. Only this one paragraph is enough. These words, growth of the faculties, are very important. Our education is normally by books and subjects whereas a good teacher is very concerned with the growth of faculties. It may be this subject or that subject or any other subjects, what is important is to develop the faculties.
There are four important faculties in human beings. One is the faculty of sensation—senses. Development of sense faculty is the development of the powers which are inherent to senses: power of observation, of seeing accurately, of enjoying correctly. Experience of hearing, when you hear music and you are able to appreciate different tunes of music, different notes of music, pitches of music, then you have cultivated the faculty of hearing. And when you hear music, if you can hear the inaudible sounds. The sounds which are audible are, of course, heard but between the sounds there are inaudible sounds and if you can hear the inaudible sounds … it is just as in a picture, what is painted is of course good but, if you can observe what is not painted that is a deeper sight, the deeper eye of the artist. So first, the faculty to be developed is the sense. The second faculty is the faculty of the mind. Mind is also sense but it is a coordinating sense, it is the sense which coordinates all the other senses. When you can coordinate sound and sight as in the cinema — the medium of cinema gives you sound and sight together, it is like a mind. Our mind is an automatic cinematographic faculty. It coordinates a variety of experiences. Cinema is not a complete coordinative faculty because you can’t taste; when you see somebody eating you do not taste what he tastes; you cannot experience also the sensation of touch as yet in cinema. But the mind can do all this together. So the faculty of the mind is very important — a coordinating activity. The third faculty is the faculty of imagination. Without experience, or based on experience you can make images in the mind. That is imagination, the capacity to make an image as accurately as possible. That takes you to the experience of metaphors, similes, and analogies and try to image an experience, or expand the experience into an image. That is the third faculty.
The fourth faculty is the faculty of reason. The capacity of deduction, of induction, the faculty of ratiocination, of connecting cause and effect. When there is a long chain of connections and you can successfully make the full chain that is the process of ratiocination. A is the cause of B; B is the cause of C; C is the cause of D… therefore A is the cause of D. Faculty of reason is the faculty by which you deduce, you induce. Deduction is where from a larger proposition you derive a smaller proposition; from all you derive something that is applicable to one or to some. Induction is the opposite process you go from particular to universal, from one example you conclude that in all cases it will happen in the same way. And then you have implication. All these are processes of inference. Inference is to start from one proposition and derive another proposition. Inference is done by deduction, induction, implication and ratiocination. Reason is supposed to be the instrument of inference. You are rational when you can infer correctly and objectively that is called power of inference. To infer is a great faculty in the human mind. It goes beyond experience. In sensation you have experience but in reason you have further capacity, you go beyond experience. Because we have the experience here in India of earth and water and air you can be sure that even if you go to California there will be earth and water and air. You have not experienced it but you infer. Basically there is no difference between India and California therefore if it is possible to have here earth, water, fire, etc, in California also we will have. Without experience we can say, we can infer. Rational faculty is a faculty by which you can infer accurately, decisively. These are the four faculties: sensation, mind, imagination, and reason. And the fifth faculty is intuition, the capacity of intuition. It is called knowledge by identity; but knowledge by identity even with the invisible. This is the speciality of intuition. Even what is invisible, inaudible to our senses, even with that you can be identified. Of course, intuition itself has many other faculties in which we will not go just now; it is a big science by itself.
But the important point is that the good teacher has his eyes on the faculty of his students. He may teach any subject: mathematics, history, geography, science, whatever but his concern is whether you are developing the faculties. In ordinary systems of education what is tested is only whether you know this fact or that fact, whether you are informed of this or that and very few teachers try to understand development of the faculties, whether you ideas become clear, whether your spelling is correct or not, whether you can reason properly or not, whether your observations are correct or not. You may write very briefly, not at length, but your brief statement should convey the development of your faculties and the good teacher’s experience is with the faculty development. “… he will aim at the growth of the faculties and the experiences by a natural process and free expansion.” In one sentence Sri Aurobindo has put so much. A good teacher is one who does not allow the student to feel burdened. He gradually grows, does not give a lot of homework and does not load the child. He repeats several times, he is not tired of repeating so that the child does not have the burden of memorising too many things. You might have learned what deduction is earlier and you forgot after sometime, it does not matter; he will repeat again and say what is deduction, what is induction, what is implication, again and again so there is a natural expansion. The expansion will be natural; it will not be by hammering it should be a joyous experience, every time there is freshness and you grow with that freshness.
He will give a method as an aid, as a utilisable device, not as an imperative formula or a fixed routine. And he will be on his guard against any turning of the means into a limitation, against the mechanising of process. His whole business is to awaken the divine light and set working the divine force of which he himself is only a means and an aid, a body or a channel.
Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids
Every individual needs a method but a good teacher remembers that a method is not a fixed thing; it is not a routine to be followed; it is not something that binds you. It only helps you and the moment you are helped you can fling away the method and you become more free.
And he will be on his guard against any turning of the means into a limitation, against the mechanising of process. His whole business is to awaken the divine light and set working the divine force of which he himself is only a means and an aid, a body or a channel.
Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids
For a good teacher his main business is not sensation, not imagination, not ratiocination; these are good things, they should be included, but his main interest is how much you are awakened to the presence of the Divine in your being. You see that in one paragraph Sri Aurobindo has put down the entire process of education, the entire process of the method of education, the entire role of the teacher — its beginning, its middle and its end. That is why if you master this paragraph you have got a complete science and art of education. All the rest are footnotes.
Now, Sri Aurobindo expands upon the three instruments of the teacher: instruction, example and influence. Since these are the three most important instruments of the teacher. “The example is more powerful than the instruction…” Once I told you that education is what remains after you have forgotten all that you have learned. What remains with you is the example of the teacher. You may have forgotten everything that he has taught you but what remains is his example.
The example is more powerful than the instruction; but it is not the example of the outward acts nor that of the personal character which is of most importance. These have their place and their utility; but what will most stimulate aspiration in others is the central fact of the divine realisation within him governing his whole life and inner state and all his activities. This is the universal and essential element; the rest belongs to individual person and circumstance. It is this dynamic realisation that the sadhaka must feel and reproduce in himself according to his own nature; he need not strive after an imitation from outside which may well be sterilising rather than productive of right and natural fruits. Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids
When you say example of the teacher it is his own inner realisation and how much his realisation is reflected in his life, in his activities. It is that which is of central importance.
The example is more powerful than the instruction; but it is not the example of the outward acts nor that of the personal character which is of most importance. These have their place and their utility; but what will most stimulate aspiration in others is the central fact of the divine realisation within him governing his whole life and inner state and all his activities. This is the universal and essential element; the rest belongs to individual person and circumstance. It is this dynamic realisation that the sadhaka must feel and reproduce in himself according to his own nature; he need not strive after an imitation from outside which may well be sterilising rather than productive of right and natural fruits. Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids
You may imitate the teacher outwardly and for sometimes you may feel happy but afterwards it becomes sterile. The real imitation has to be the realisation of the teacher and if you can reproduce his realisation that is a real imitation.
Influence is more important than example. Influence is not the outward authority of the Teacher over his disciple, but the power of his contact, of his presence, of the nearness of his soul to the soul of another, infusing into it, even though in silence, that which he himself is and possesses. This is the supreme sign of the Master. For the greatest Master is much less a Teacher than a Presence pouring the divine consciousness and its constituting light and power and purity and bliss into all who are receptive around him.
Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids
Last time I told you the meaning of influence. Influence is a radiation of the inner contact, of the intimacy of the soul of the teacher with the soul of the student because it is the only thing that is intimate. Everything else is outward. The touch of the soul with the soul, there is nothing more intimate than the soul. What you are is your soul, what the teacher is, is his soul. His soul touching your soul is an influence, the radiation of that touch, that is influence.
Influence is more important than example. Influence is not the outward authority of the Teacher over his disciple, but the power of his contact, of his presence, of the nearness of his soul to the soul of another, infusing into it, even though in silence, that which he himself is and possesses. This is the supreme sign of the Master. For the greatest Master is much less a Teacher than a Presence pouring the divine consciousness and its constituting light and power and purity and bliss into all who are receptive around him.
Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids
It is not the position that you occupy with your students. Very often most of the teachers exercise influence because they sit on a platform, a higher position and therefore influence the pupils but that is not a real influence.
Influence is more important than example. Influence is not the outward authority of the Teacher over his disciple, but the power of his contact, of his presence, of the nearness of his soul to the soul of another, infusing into it, even though in silence, that which he himself is and possesses. This is the supreme sign of the Master. For the greatest Master is much less a Teacher than a Presence pouring the divine consciousness and its constituting light and power and purity and bliss into all who are receptive around him.
Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids
These words are so important and so beautiful that one would like to read again and again.
This is the supreme sign of the Master. For the greatest Master is much less a Teacher than a Presence pouring the divine consciousness and its constituting light and power and purity and bliss into all who are receptive around him.
And it shall also be a sign of the teacher of the integral Yoga that he does not arrogate to himself Guruhood in a humanly vain and self-exalting spirit.
Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids
The unripe men when they want to be teachers, they want to have the authority of the teacher, they want to exercise influence upon people by abrogating to themselves guruhood. “I am a guru, you are my disciples, you must follow me.” They impose themselves upon the pupils. That is the sign that they are not teachers. A true teacher is extremely humble.
And it shall also be a sign of the teacher of the integral Yoga that he does not arrogate to himself Guruhood in a humanly vain and self-exalting spirit. His work, if he has one, is a trust from above, he himself a channel, a vessel or a representative. He is a man helping his brothers, a child leading children, a Light kindling other lights, an awakened Soul awakening souls, at highest a Power or Presence of the Divine calling to him other powers of the Divine. Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids
In every experience he finds that his pupil is a living god. He deals with every pupil as god. And if he is himself a god, he is calling all other gods. This is the highest condition of a good teacher. He does not deal with a child as if he is ignorant; this is only the outward experience of the child but inwardly he is himself a living god. Therefore he deals with every one as if he is god himself. We have come to the culmination of the experience of a good teacher.
Now what remains is very little. We have done three great aids: the shastra, utsaha and the guru. Now we shall come to kala.
The sadhaka who has all these aids is sure of his goal. Even a fall will be for him only a means of rising and death a passage towards fulfilment. For once on this path, birth and death become only processes in the development of his being and the stages of his journey.
Time is the remaining aid needed for the effectivity of the process. Time presents itself to human effort as an enemy or a friend, as a resistance, a medium or an instrument. But always it is really the instrument of the soul.
Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids
Every dramatist knows that no drama can be successful unless he knows the secret of time. He knows that everything has a movement. No event can occur without a preceding development within a certain time frame. It is the same for a musician, a good musician is one who knows the time to be taken to organise different tunes. You cannot come to crescendo unless you have developed a certain movement of musical process. You cannot have mango fruit immediately after planting a seed of mango into the soil. There is a time element. The whole world is nothing but a series of processes in which time is the ripener. Without time nothing ripens and therefore all wise people are very patient because they all know the value of time. They do not say that they have taken one year and nothing has happened. Every process has its own rhythm and you may have all the aids but if you do not honour time then you may feel great frustrations, disappointments and it weakens your processes therefore you must know what is time and how time has to be utilised. That is the reason why everyone has to be careful about making a timetable; every student should make a good timetable, it is a very good art. At what time what you have a natural tendency to do, depending you have to organise your timetable. What you have to do, according to Sri Aurobindo, is the human effort which is impatient, ignorant to make it wise. When a human being becomes wise he treats time as an instrument. Otherwise the more egoistic you are, the more you feel that time is your enemy. There is one very nice sentence in Hamlet: “Time is out of joint” Whenever he goes to do something he is always too late. He does not do things at the right moment and this is our experience constantly. When you are very egoistic you find time is out of joint. When you need something exactly at that moment that thing is not found, it may be all the time with you but at the exact moment you need it, it is not there. That means that you have not organised your time properly. Time is found to be an enemy.
Time is a field of circumstances and forces meeting and working out a resultant progression whose course it measures. To the ego it is a tyrant or a resistance, to the Divine an instrument. Therefore, while our effort is personal, Time appears as a resistance, for it presents to us all the obstruction of the forces that conflict with our own. When the divine working and the personal are combined in our consciousness, it appears as a medium and a condition. When the two become one, it appears as a servant and instrument.
Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids
In two lines Sri Aurobindo has given the best definition of time. There are many definitions of time. For example: time is a succession of moments. Sri Aurobindo however gives a more comprehensive definition of time. Time is a field, you can see that a field is not successive, field is holistic, every field is holistic. Therefore time here is not linear time; it is not something successive, step by step moving forward. Time is a field of circumstances and forces not only circumstances but also forces. Unless circumstances and forces working within circumstances meet, criss-cross, are assembled there is no real process of time. Time measures of course a process, but that process is a result of circumstances, forces which meet each other, cross each other and then produce a sequence as a result of which that which is in the process becomes a product — there is a result which comes out.
Time is a field of circumstances and forces meeting and working out a resultant progression whose course it measures. To the ego it is a tyrant or a resistance, to the Divine an instrument. Therefore, while our effort is personal, Time appears as a resistance, for it presents to us all the obstruction of the forces that conflict with our own. When the divine working and the personal are combined in our consciousness, it appears as a medium and a condition. When the two become one, it appears as a servant and instrument.
Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids
It is a beautiful and really comprehensive definition of time which you should memorize.
If you become a storywriter, if you become a dramatist you have to understand the secret process of time. In fact, Aristotle who wrote a book on drama said that a good drama is one which has unity of space and time — unity of space and time, not in a succession. A good dramatist is the one who knows at what point of time movement a drama should start. All great stories, all great dramas measure the starting point: at what point of time the drama starts? So that what has already happened is not necessarily described, it will come in the very course of unfoldment. If you read Hamlet for example, it is one of the greatest dramas. If you study Hamlet as a drama, the very first scene —how it starts! It is a dark night, not a mouse stirring, complete hush. All suspense of the moment, the time is pregnant. What has happened in the past is filled in that moment; what is to happen if the future is also held in that moment. It is a very pregnant moment and Shakespeare begins the drama with the ‘dong’ and enquires because all have heard that a ghost appeared in the castle and they wanted to see whether today, tonight the ghost will appear or not. And the whole story hangs up on the ghost and the appearance of the ghost and what the ghost communicates. The whole drama, the whole tragedy is based upon that time, that moment. It is the meeting of forces; it is the circumstances and the meeting of forces in which a resultant progression is worked out. It is a very brief description of time, but very comprehensive.
Time is a field of circumstances and forces meeting and working out a resultant progression whose course it measures. To the ego it is a tyrant or a resistance, to the Divine an instrument. Therefore, while our effort is personal, Time appears as a resistance, for it presents to us all the obstruction of the forces that conflict with our own. When the divine working and the personal are combined in our consciousness, it appears as a medium and a condition. When the two become one, it appears as a servant and instrument.
Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids
Why is time a tyrant or a resistance? Because the ego does not respect circumstances; it does not respect the meeting of forces. Ego is interested only in itself: what it wants, its own assertion, its own affirmation and its immediate need of realisation. This is the mark of the ego. It is unaware of the circumstances of the forces which are at work. As Sri Aurobindo says, the ego considers the whole world as moving around itself, as if everything is created for itself. He looks upon the world as its own instrument — not that it is itself the instrument of all. To it all is insignificant; itself is the most significant. This is the limitation of the egoistic consciousness and therefore when it meets the circumstances, when it meets the forces which have been worked out it finds resistance because circumstances do not respect the ego, the forces that are around do not respect the ego. They all go their own way, for themselves. The Divine has a complete good account of everything, of the ego and the all, the relationship between this little finite and the all. Therefore for the Divine everything is an instrument.
Therefore, while our effort is personal, Time appears as a resistance, for it presents to us all the obstruction of the forces that conflict with our own. When the divine working and the personal are combined in our consciousness, it appears as a medium and a condition. When the two become one, it appears as a servant and instrument. Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids
When the Divine will and my will become identical then time is only an instrument, a servant. Whatever time you need for the accomplishment of the work, exactly that much time you will get for your work and you will find during that time everything is smooth, nothing uninvited, unexpected comes into the picture, everything that happens is just on the spot.
I have seen with the Mother very often, if she was in need of a fountain pen, it just came to her as a gift from somebody exactly at the right moment. If she wanted information from somebody it was found that the person with the information was just at the door and came exactly at the right moment and gave the information. When you are the master of time you find exactly this condition. Whenever you need X, X is available, if you think that X is not needed now X will not be available at that time. Whatever you need happens exactly at the right time — in fact everything happens at the right time if you know the Divine way of doing things. But because of our egoistic willing, egoistic eagerness, egoistic tyranny we find time is out of joint. Basically time is never out of joint, everything is measured out, everything happens at the right moment. When I need you, you are with me, when you need me I am with you. This is the tune and the harmony and the rhythm of life. If you get out of the egoistic preoccupation everything becomes an instrument. Therefore Sri Aurobindo gives the greatest advice, the greatest formula of dealing with time — how to deal with time.
The ideal attitude of the sadhaka towards Time is to have an endless patience as if he had all eternity for his fulfilment and yet to develop the energy that shall realise now and with an ever-increasing mastery and pressure of rapidity till it reaches the miraculous instantaneousness of the supreme divine Transformation. Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids
Let us read again. We should read it five times because it is one of the most important sentences in this chapter.
The ideal attitude of the sadhaka towards Time is to have an endless patience as if he had all eternity for his fulfilment and yet to develop the energy that shall realise now and with an ever-increasing mastery and pressure of rapidity till it reaches the miraculous instantaneousness of the supreme divine Transformation. Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids
Therefore, never to be in haste, no hurry, endless patience. That is the first attitude. Don’t demand that you must realise God today. It is an ignorant demand, an egoistic demand as if you are important rather than God being important. You should have endless patience as if he had all eternity for his fulfilment. So imagine the kind of patience that one must have. Many people who turn to the path of yoga egoistically they demand so much from the Divine that they become frustrated easily and they fall in their yoga. They destroy their own efforts by becoming too impatient. But that is not enough, it is only half the sentence! While being very patient you have something to do here and now. Don’t say that there is a lot of time and everything will happen. This is an attitude of patience which is good but at the same time couple it with another attitude: we should develop the energy… Whatever faculties you have, whatever faculties you can develop now without postponement you develop them now.
The ideal attitude of the sadhaka towards Time is to have an endless patience as if he had all eternity for his fulfilment and yet to develop the energy that shall realise now and with an ever-increasing mastery and pressure of rapidity till it reaches the miraculous instantaneousness of the supreme divine Transformation. Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids
You should develop your energy now and more and more, as rapidly as possible, so that a day may come when what needs to be done can be done immediately, instantaneously. Ask it is given on the spot; complete transformation you want, on the spot you can have, immediately. So you combine two attitudes. Mother once said to me a good definition of time, first: “Have no ambition — n’ambitionne jamais”. Because ambition always breaks you down. You have a goal but no ambition. Then, “whatever you can do, without pretension, whatever you want to do, whatever you have to do, do it as perfectly and as quickly as possible.” You combine both the things, quickness and perfection. You combine them together and you get the exactly right rhythm of the time movement. Do as perfectly as you can and do as quickly as you can. You combine these two together, this formula of Sri Aurobindo will be fulfilled.