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Fifth letter in "The Mother"
(The true doer of divine works)
(August 19, 1927)
by Sri Aurobindo
If you want to be a true doer of divine works, your first aim must
be to totally free from all desire and self-regarding ego.
All your life must be an offering and a sacrifice to the Supreme; your
only object in action shall be to serve, to receive, to fulfill, to become
a manifesting instrument of the Divine Shakti in her works.
You must grow in the divine consciousness till there is no difference
between your will and hers, no motive except her impulsion in you, no
action that is not her conscious action in you and through you.
Until you are capable of this complete dynamic identification, you have
to regard yourself as a soul and body created for her service, one who
does all for her sake.
Even if the idea of the separate worker is strong in you and you feel
that it is you who do the act, yet it must be done for her.
All stress of egoistic choice, all hankering after personal profit, all
stipulation of self-regarding desire must be extirpated from the nature.
There must be no demand for fruit and no seeking for reward; the only
fruit for you is the pleasure of the Divine Mother and the fulfilment
of her work, your only reward a constant progression in divine consciousness
and calm and strength and bliss.
The joy of service and the joy of inner growth through works is the sufficient
recompense of the selfless worker.
But a time will come when you are more and more of the instrument and
not the worker.
For first by the force of your devotion your contact with the Divine Mother
will become so intimate that at all times you will have only to concentrate
and to put everything into her hands to have her present guidance, her
direct command or impulse, the sure indication of the thing to be done
and the way to do it and the result.
And afterwards you will realise that the divine Shakti not only inspires
and guides, but initiates and carries out your works; all your movements
are originated by her, all your powers are hers, mind, life and body are
conscious and joyful instruments of her action, means for her play, moulds
for her manifestation in the physical universe.
There can be no more happy condition than this union and dependence; for
this step carries you back beyond the border-line from the life of stress
and suffering and ignorance into the truth of your spiritual being, into
its deep peace and its intense Ananda.
While this transformation is being done it is more than ever necessary
to keep yourself free from all taint of the perversions of the ego.
Let no demand or insistence creep in to stain the purity of the self-giving
and the sacrifice.
There must be no attachment to the work or the result, no laying down
of conditions, no claim to possess the Power that should possess you,
no pride of the instrument, no vanity or arrogance.
Nothing in the mind or in the vital or physical parts should be suffered
to distort to its own use or seize for its own personal and separate satisfaction
the greatness of the forces that are acting through you.
Let your faith, your sincerity, your purity of aspiration be absolute
and pervasive of all planes and layers of the being; then every disturbing
element and distorting influence will progressively fall away from your
nature.
The last stage of this perfection will come when you are completely
identified with the Divine Mother and feel yourself no longer to be
another and separate being, instrument, servant or worker but truly a
child and eternal portion of her consciousness and force.
Always she will be in you and you in her; it will be your constant, simple
and natural experience that all your thought and seeing and action, your
every breathing or moving come from her and are hers.
You will know and see and feel that you are a person and power formed
out of herself, put out from her for the play and yet always safe in her,
being of her being, consciousness of her consciousness, force of her force,
Ananda of her Ananda.
When this condition is entire and her supramental energies can freely
move you, then you will be perfect in divine works; knowledge, will, action
will become sure, simple, luminous, spontaneous, flawless, an outflow
from the Supreme, a divine movement of the Eternal.
August 19, 1927
Sri Aurobindo
Mira
(The original letter has both signatures)
In SABCL, volume 25, "The Mother and Letters
on the Mother" (pages 11-14)
The Mother has commented that text
on August 4, 1954
in CMW, vol. 6, "Questions and Answers - 1954",
pages 266-272
published by Sri
Aurobindo Ashram - Pondicherry
diffusion by SABDA
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