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The Mother
Conversations 1930-31
Faith
The perception of the exterior consciousness may
deny the perception of the psychic.
But the psychic has the true knowledge, an intuitive instinctive knowledge.
It says, "I know; I cannot give reasons, but I know." For its
knowledge is not mental, based on experience or proved true. It does not
believe after proofs are given: faith is the movement of the soul whose
knowledge is spontaneous and direct.
Even if the whole world denies and brings forward a thousand proofs to
the contrary, still it knows by an inner knowledge, a direct perception
that can stand against everything, a perception by identity. The knowledge
of the psychic is something which is concrete and tangible, a solid mass.
You can also bring it into your mental, your vital and your physical;
and then you have an integral faith - a faith which can really move mountains.
But nothing in the being must come and say, "It is not like that",
or ask for a test. By the least half-belief you spoil matters.
How can the Supreme manifest if faith is not integral and immovable ?
Faith in itself is always unshakable - that is its very nature, for otherwise
it is not faith at all.
But it may happen that the mind or the vital or the physical does not
follow the psychic movement.
A man can come to a Yogi and have a sudden faith that this person will
lead him to his goal. He does not know whether the person has knowledge
or not. He feels a psychic shock and knows that he has met his master.
He does not believe after long mental consideration or seeing many miracles.
And this is the only kind of faith worthwhile.
You will always miss your destiny if you start arguing.
Some people sit down and consider whether the psychic impulse is reasonable
or not.
It is not really by what is called blind faith that people are misled.
They often say, "Oh, I have believed in this or that man and he has
betrayed me !" But in fact the fault lies not with the man but with
the believer: it is some weakness in himself.
If he had kept his faith intact he would have changed the man: it is because
he did not remain in the same faith-consciousness that he found himself
betrayed and did not make the man what he wanted him to be. If he had
had integral faith, he would have obliged the man to change.
It is always by faith that miracles happen.
A person goes to another and has a contact with the Divine Presence; if
he can keep this contact pure and sustained, it will oblige the Divine
Consciousness to manifest in the most material. But all depends on your
own standard and your own sincerity; and the more you are psychically
ready the more you are led to the right source, the right master.
The psychic and its faith are always sincere, but if in your exterior
being there is insincerity and if you are seeking not spiritual life but
personal powers, that can mislead you.
It is that and not your faith that misleads you.
Pure in itself, faith can get mixed up in the being with low movements
and it is then that you are misled.
The Mother
in CWM, volume 3, "Questions and Answers 1930-31",
pages 152-153
published by Sri
Aurobindo Ashram - Pondicherry
diffusion by SABDA
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