You have said: "You must be vigilant and see that you do not use
the Divine as a cloak for the satisfaction of your desires."
Questions and Answers 1929 (14 April)
Many people accept certain theories, some of which are very convenient,
and they say, "Everything is the result of the divine Will";
others say, "The Divine is everywhere and in everything and does
everything"; yet others say, "My will is one with the divine
Will, it is He who inspires me." Indeed, there are many theories
and they say that. Naturally, their ego is as alive. They do all that
they want to do, saying, "It is the Divine who is doing it in me."
Whatever is supplied by their brain is the "divine Will". It
is not a personal inspiration: "Everything is the result of the divine
Will." "It is not I who am acting, it is the Divine who is acting
through me." They do all that they wish to do. There are many people
like that. Therefore I said, "Do not use the Divine as a pretty cloak
to hide your desires."
"The question is to be sincere. If you are not sincere, do not
begin Yoga."
(Ibid.)
Sincerity is perhaps the most difficult of all things and perhaps it is
also the most effective.
If you have perfect sincerity, you are sure of victory. It is infinitely
difficult. Sincerity consists in making all the elements of the being,
all the movements (whether outer or inner), all the parts of the being,
all of them, have one single will to belong to the Divine, to live only
for the Divine, to will only what the Divine wills, to express only the
divine Will, to have no other source of energy than that o tie Divine.
And you find that there is not a day, not an hour, not a minute when you
do not need to intensify, rectify your sincerity - a total refusal to
deceive the Divine. The first thing is not to deceive oneself. One knows
one cannot deceive the Divine; even the cleverest of the Asuras cannot
deceive the Divine. But even when one has understood that, one sees that
quite often in one's life, in the course of the day, one tries to deceive
oneself without even knowing it, spontaneously and almost automatically.
One always gives favourable explanations for all that one does, for one's
words, for one's acts. That is what happens first. I am not speaking of
obvious things like quarrelling and saying, "It is the other one's
fault", I am speaking of the very tiny things of daily life.
I know a child who knocked against a door and he gave a good kick to the
door! It is the same thing. It is always the other one who is in the wrong,
who has committed the mistake. Even when you have passed the stage of
the child, when you have a little reason, you still give the stupidest,
of all excuses: "If he had not done that, I wouldn't have done this."
But it should be just the other way round!
This is what I call being sincere. When you are with someone, if you are
sincere, instantaneously your way of reacting should be to do the right
thing, even when you are with someone who does not do it. Take the most
common example of someone who gets angry: Instead of saying things that
hurt, you say nothing, you keep calm and quiet, you do not catch the contagion
of the anger. You have only to look at yourself to see if this is easy.
It is quite an elementary thing, a very small beginning to know whether
you are sincere. And I am not speaking of those who catch every contagion,
even that of coarse joking nor of those who commit the same stupidity
as the others.
I tell you: If you look at yourself with sharp eyes, you will catch in
yourself insincerities by the hundred, even though you are trying to be
sincere in your general attitude. You will see how difficult it is.
I tell you: If you are sincere in all the elements of your being, to the
very cells of your body and if your whole being integrally wants the Divine,
you are sure of victory but for nothing less than that. That is what I
call being sincere.
I am not speaking of glaring things like obeying your impulses, your caprices
and then saying: "I do not belong to myself any more, I belong to
the Divine; it is the Divine who is doing everything in me, who is acting
in me", that indeed is crude enough. I am speaking of more refined
people, a little more noble, who put on a pretty cloak to cover their
desires.
How many things in the course of the day, how many thoughts, sensations,
gestures are turned exclusively towards the Divine in an aspiration? How
many? I believe if you have a single one in the whole day, you may mark
that in red letters.
When I say, "If you are sincere, you are sure of victory", I
mean true sincerity: to be constantly the true flame that burns like an
offering. That intense joy of existing only by the Divine and for the
Divine and feeling that without Him nothing exists, that life has no longer
any meaning, nothing has any purpose, nothing has any value, nothing has
any interest, unless it is this call, this aspiration, this opening to
the supreme Truth, to all that we call the Divine (because you must use
some word or other), the only reason for the existence of the universe.
Remove that and everything disappears.
The Mother
"Questions and Answers 1953"
CWM Volume 5, pages 5-7
published by Sri
Aurobindo Ashram - Pondicherry
diffusion by SABDA
Previous Talk: 18 March 1953
Next Talk: 1st April 1953
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