WRITINGS BY THE MOTHER
© Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

True aspiration

27 November 1965

This talk begins with Mother's comments on the message distributed on the Darshan day of November 24th.

"It is certainly a mistake to bring down the light by force--to pull it down. The Supramental cannot be taken by storm. When the time is ready it will open of itself--but first there is a great deal to be done and that must be done patiently and without haste."

Sri Aurobindo

It is good for reasonable people. They will say, "There, he does not promise miracles."

Why? Do many people have the tendency to "pull down"?

People are in a hurry, they want to see the results immediately.

And then, they believe they are pulling down the Supramental--they pull down some small vital individuality who mocks at them and in the end makes them play the shabby fool. This is what happens most often--ninety-nine times out of a hundred.

A small individuality, a vital entity who plays the big play and makes a great show, plays of light. Then the poor fellow who has "pulled" is bedazzled; he says, "There, it is the Supramental", and he falls into a pit.

It is only when you have touched, seen in some way and had a contact with the true Light, that you can distinguish the vital, and you perceive that it is altogether like the plays of light on a stage, an artificial light. But otherwise, others are dazzled--it is dazzling, it is "wonderful", and then they are deceived. It is only when you have seen and when you have had the contact [old p. 23]with the Truth, ah! then you smile. [new p. 23]

It is quackery, but you must know the truth in order to recognise quackery.

At bottom, it is the same for everything. The vital is like a superstage that gives shows--very attractive, dazzling, deceptive; it is only when you know the True Thing that you recognise immediately, instinctively, without reasoning, and you say, "No, I do not want that."

And for everything it is so. Where it has taken a capital importance in human life is with regard to love. Vital passions, vital attractions have almost everywhere taken the place of true feeling, which is quiet, whereas the other puts you in ferment, gives you the feeling of something "living". It is very deceptive. And you do not know it, you do not feel it, you do not perceive it clearly unless you know the True Thing. If you have touched true love through the psychic and the divine union, then the other thing appears hollow, thin, empty--an appearance and a comedy, more often tragic than comic.

Whatever one may say about it, however one may explain it, is of no use at all, because he or she who is caught says immediately, "Oh, this is not what it is for others"--what happens to yourself is never like what happens to others! One must have the true experience, then the whole vital appears like a masquerade--not attractive.

And when you "pull", well, it is much more than ninety-nine times out of one hundred... out of a million there is found only one case where one happens to pull the True Thing--this proves one was ready. Otherwise it is always the vital which you pull, the appearance, the theatrical show of the Thing, not the Thing itself.

To pull is always an egoistic movement. It is a deformation of aspiration. True aspiration consists in a giving, a self-giving, whereas to pull means to want for oneself. Even if in the mind you have a vaster ambition--the earth, the universe--that means nothing, these are mental activities.

Collected Works of The Mother, First Edition, Volume 11, pp. 22-23