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==Process==
 
===Becoming Conscious===
"To work for your perfection the first step is to become conscious of yourself." (The Mother, 13 January 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/13-january-1951#p16</ref>
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-integral-perfection?search=perfection</ref>
This power of the soul over its nature is of the utmost importance in the Yoga of self-perfection; if it did not exist, we could never get by conscious endeavour and aspiration out of the fixed groove of our present imperfect human being; if any greater perfection were intended, we should have to wait for Nature to effect it in her own slow or swift process of evolution. In the lower forms of being the soul accepts this complete subjection to Nature, but as it rises higher in the scale, it awakes to a sense of something in itself which can command Nature; but it is only when it arrives at self-knowledge that this free will and control becomes a complete reality. The change effects itself through process of nature, not therefore by any capricious magic, but an ordered development and intelligible process. When complete mastery is gained, then the process by its self-effective rapidity may seem a miracle to the intelligence, but it still proceeds by law of the truth of Spirit,—when the Divine within us by close union of our will and being with him takes up the Yoga and acts as the omnipotent master of the nature. For the Divine is our highest Self and the self of all Nature, the eternal and universal Purusha. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-psychology-of-self-perfection#p8</ref>
 
An integral Yoga includes as a vital and indispensable element in its total and ultimate aim the conversion of the whole being into a higher spiritual consciousness and a larger divine existence. Our parts of will and action, our parts of knowledge, our thinking being, our emotional being, our being of life, all our self and nature must seek the Divine, enter into the Infinite, unite with the Eternal. But man's present nature is limited, divided, unequal,—it is easiest for him to concentrate in the strongest part of his being and follow a definite line of progress proper to his nature: only rare individuals have the strength to take a large immediate plunge straight into the sea of the Divine Infinity. Some therefore must choose as a starting-point a concentration in thought or contemplation or the mind's one-pointedness to find the eternal reality of the Self in them; others can more easily withdraw into the heart to meet there the Divine, the Eternal: yet others are predominantly dynamic and active; for these it is best to centre themselves in the will and enlarge their being through works. United with the Self and source of all by their surrender of their will into its infinity, guided in their works by the secret Divinity within or surrendered to the Lord of the cosmic action as the master and mover of all their energies of thought, feeling, act, becoming by this enlargement of being selfless and universal, they can reach by works some first fullness of a spiritual status. But the path, whatever its point of starting, must debouch into a vaster dominion; it must proceed in the end through a totality of integrated knowledge, emotion, will of dynamic action, perfection of the being and the entire nature. In the supramental consciousness, on the level of the supramental existence this integration becomes consummate; there knowledge, will, emotion, the perfection of the self and the dynamic nature rise each to its absolute of itself and all to their perfect harmony and fusion with each other, to a divine integrality, a divine perfection. For the supermind is a Truth-Consciousness in which the Divine Reality, fully manifested, no longer works with the instrumentation of the Ignorance; a truth of status of being which is absolute becomes dynamic in a truth of energy and activity of the being which is self-existent and perfect. Every movement there is a movement of the self-aware truth of Divine Being and every part is in entire harmony with the whole. Even the most limited and finite action is in the Truth-Consciousness a movement of the Eternal and Infinite and partakes of the inherent absoluteness and perfection of the Eternal and Infinite. An ascent into the supramental Truth not only raises our spiritual and essential consciousness to that height but brings about a descent of this Light and Truth into all our being and all our parts of nature. All then becomes part of the Divine Truth, an element and means of the supreme union and oneness; this ascent and descent must be therefore an ultimate aim of this Yoga.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-supermind-and-the-yoga-of-works#p1</ref>
 
===Identifying with the Witness Consciousness ===
...we find ourselves to be not the mind, but a mental being who stands behind the action of the embodied mind, not a mental and vital personality,—personality is a composition of Nature,—but a mental Person,manomaya puruṣa. We become aware of a being within who takes his stand upon mind for self-knowledge and world-knowledge and thinks of himself as an individual for self-experience and world-experience, for an inward action and an outward-going action, but is yet different from mind, life and body. First, he has the intuition of himself as someone observing the action of the mind; it is something which is going on in him and yet before him as an object of his regarding knowledge. This self-awareness is the intuitive sense of the witness Purusha, sākṣī. Witness Purusha is a pure consciousness who watches Nature and sees it as an action reflected upon the consciousness and enlightened by that consciousness, but in itself other than it.To enter into identity with that Spirit must then be his way to control and lordship. He can do it passively by a sort of reflection and receiving in his mental consciousness, but then he is only a mould, channel or instrument, not a possessor or participant in the power. He can arrive at identity by an absorption of his mentality in inner spiritual being, but then the conscious action ceases in a trance of identity. To be active master of the nature he must evidently rise to some higher supramental poise where there is possible not only a passive, but an active identity with the controlling spirit. To find the way of rising to this greater poise and be self-ruler, Swarat, is a condition of his perfection.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-perfection-of-the-mental-being?search=perfection</ref>
But we can attain to ===Silencing the highest without blotting ourselves out from the cosmic extension. Brahman preserves always Its two terms of liberty within and of formation without, of expression and of freedom from the expression. We also, being That, can attain to the same divine self-possession. The harmony of the two tendencies is the condition of all life that aims at being really divine. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-destiny-of-the-individual#p18</ref>Mind===
An integral Yoga includes as a vital and indispensable element in its total and ultimate aim the conversion of the whole being into a higher spiritual consciousness and There is a larger divine existence. Our parts world of will ideas without form and action, our parts of knowledge, our thinking being, our emotional being, our being of life, all our self and nature it is there that you must seek the Divine, enter into the Infinite, unite with if you want to seize what is behind the Eternalwords. But man's present nature is limited, divided, unequal,—it is easiest for him So long as you have to concentrate in draw your understanding from the strongest part forms of his being and follow a definite line of progress proper words, you are likely to his nature: only rare individuals have fall into much confusion about the strength to take true sense; but if in a large immediate plunge straight into the sea silence of the Divine Infinity. Some therefore must choose as a starting-point a concentration in thought or contemplation or the your mind's one-pointedness to find the eternal reality of the Self in them; others you can more easily withdraw rise into the heart world from which ideas descend to meet there the Divinetake form, at once the Eternal: yet others real understanding comes. If you are predominantly dynamic and active; for these it is best to centre themselves be sure of understanding one another, you must be able to understand in the will and enlarge their being through workssilence. United with the Self There is a condition in which your minds are so well attuned and source of all by their surrender of their will into its infinity, guided in their works by harmonised together that one perceives the secret Divinity within or surrendered to the Lord thought of the cosmic action as the master and mover other without any necessity of all their energies of thought, feeling, act, becoming by words. But if there is not this enlargement of being selfless and universalattunement, they can reach by works there will always be some first fullness deformation of a spiritual status. But your meaning, because to what you speak the path, whatever other mind supplies its point of starting, must debouch into own significance. I use a vaster dominion; it must proceed word in the end through a totality certain sense or shade of integrated knowledge, emotion, will of dynamic action, perfection of the being and the entire natureits sense; you are accustomed to put into it another sense or shade. In the supramental consciousnessThen, on the level of the supramental existence this integration becomes consummate; there knowledgeevidently, you willunderstand, emotionnot my exact meaning in it, but what the perfection of the self and the dynamic nature rise each word means to its absolute you. This is true not of itself and all to their perfect harmony and fusion with each otherspeech only, but of reading also. If you want to understand a divine integrality, book with a divine perfection. For the supermind is a Truth-Consciousness deep teaching in which the Divine Realityit, fully manifested, no longer works with you must be able to read it in the instrumentation of the Ignorancemind's silence; a truth of status of being which is absolute becomes dynamic in a truth of energy you must wait and activity of let the expression go deep inside you into the being which is self-existent region where words are no more and perfect. Every movement from there is a movement of the self-aware truth of Divine Being come slowly back to your exterior consciousness and every part is in entire harmony with the wholeits surface understanding. Even But if you let the most limited words jump at your external mind and finite action is in the Truth-Consciousness a movement of the Eternal try to adapt and Infinite and partakes of adjust the inherent absoluteness two, you will have entirely missed their real sense and perfection of the Eternal and Infinitepower. An ascent into There can be no perfect understanding unless you are in union with the supramental Truth not only raises our spiritual and essential consciousness to unexpressed mind that height but brings about a descent is behind the centre of this Light and Truth into all our being and all our parts of natureexpression. All then becomes part of the Divine Truth(The Mother, an element and means of the supreme union and oneness; this ascent and descent must be therefore an ultimate aim of this Yoga.26 May 1929) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2303/the-supermind-and26-the-yoga-ofmay-works1929#p1p21</ref>
FundamentallyMan, whatever be the path one follows—whether the path of surrender, consecrationtoo, knowledge—if one wants it to be becomes perfect, only when he has found within himself that absolute calm and passivity of the Brahman and supports by it is with the same divine tolerance and the same divine bliss a free and inexhaustible activity. Those who have thus possessed the Calm within can perceive always equally difficult, and there welling out from its silence the perennial supply of the energies that work in the universe. It is but one waynot, one onlytherefore, I know the truth of only one: the Silence to say that it is perfect sincerity, but perfect sincerity! (in its nature a rejection of the cosmic activity. The Motherapparent incompatibility of the two states is an error of the limited Mind which, 12 May 1954) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/12-may-1954#p34</ref> If you said accustomed to yourself, my children, "We want trenchant oppositions of affirmation and denial and passing suddenly from one pole to be as perfect instruments as possible to express the divine Will in the world"other, then for this instrument is unable to be perfect, it must be cultivated, educated, trained. It must not be left like conceive of a shapeless piece of stone. When you want comprehensive consciousness vast and strong enough to build with include both in a stone you chisel simultaneous embrace. The Silence does not reject the world; it; when you want to make a formless block into a beautiful diamond, you chisel sustains it. Well, Or rather it is supports with an equal impartiality the activity and the withdrawal from the same thing. When with your brain activity and body you want to make a beautiful instrument for approves also the reconciliation by which the Divine, you must cultivate soul remains free and still even while it, sharpen it, refine it, complete what is missing, perfect what is therelends itself to all action. (The Mother, 13 May 1953) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0521/13-mayreality-1953omnipresent#p18p5</ref>
There is a world of ideas without form and it is there that you must enter if you want to seize what is behind the words. So long as you have to draw your understanding from the forms of words, you are likely to fall into much confusion about the true sense; but if in a silence of your mind you can rise into the world from which ideas descend to take form, at once the real understanding comes. If you are to be sure of understanding one another, you must be able to understand in silence. There is a condition in which your minds are so well attuned and harmonised together that one perceives the thought of the other without any necessity of words. But if there is not this attunement, there will always be some deformation of your meaning, because to what you speak the other mind supplies its own significance. I use a word in a certain sense or shade of its sense; you are accustomed to put into it another sense or shade. Then, evidently, you will understand, not my exact meaning in it, but what the word means to you. This is true not of speech only, but of reading also. If you want to understand a book with a deep teaching in it, you must be able to read it in the mind's silence; you must wait and let the expression go deep inside you into the region where words are no more and from there come slowly back to your exterior consciousness and its surface understanding. But if you let the words jump at your external mind and try to adapt and adjust the two, you will have entirely missed their real sense and power. There can be no perfect understanding unless you are in union with the unexpressed mind that is behind the centre of expression. (The Mother, 26 May 1929) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/26-may-1929#p21</ref>===By Detachment===
The seeker of the integral state of knowledge must be free from attachment to action and equally free from attachment to inaction. Especially must any tendency to mere inertia of mind or vitality or body be surmounted, and if that habit is found growing on the nature, the will of the Purusha must be used to dismiss it. Eventually, a state arrives when the life and the body perform as mere instruments the will of the Purusha in the mind without any strain or attachment, without their putting themselves into the action with that inferior, eager and often feverish energy which is the nature of their ordinary working; they come to work as forces of Nature work without the fret and toil and reaction characteristic of life in the body when it is not yet master of the physical. When we attain to this perfection, then action and inaction become immaterial, since neither interferes with the freedom of the soul or draws it away from its urge towards the Self or its poise in the Self. But this state of perfection arrives later in the Yoga and till then the law of moderation laid down by the Gita is the best for us; too much mental or physical action then is not good since excess draws away too much energy and reacts unfavourably upon the spiritual condition; too little also is not good since defect leads to a habit of inaction and even to an incapacity which has afterwards to be surmounted with difficulty. Still, periods of absolute calm, solitude and cessation from works are highly desirable and should be secured as often as possible for that recession of the soul into itself which is indispensable to knowledge. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-release-from-subjection-to-the-body#p8</ref>
Man, too, becomes perfect only when he has found within himself that absolute calm and passivity of the Brahman and supports by it with the same divine tolerance and the same divine bliss a free and inexhaustible activity. Those who have thus possessed the Calm within can perceive always welling out from its silence the perennial supply of the energies that work in the universe. It is not, therefore, the truth of the Silence to say that it is in its nature a rejection of the cosmic activity. The apparent incompatibility of the two states is an error of the limited Mind which, accustomed to trenchant oppositions of affirmation and denial and passing suddenly from one pole to the other, is unable to conceive of a comprehensive consciousness vast and strong enough to include both in a simultaneous embrace. The Silence does not reject the world; it sustains it. Or rather it supports with an equal impartiality the activity and the withdrawal from the activity and approves also the reconciliation by which the soul remains free and still even while it lends itself to all action. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/reality-omnipresent#p5</ref>===By Equality===
The calm established in the whole being must remain the same whatever happens, in health and disease, in pleasure and in pain, even in the strongest physical pain, in good fortune and misfortune, our own or that of those we love, in success and failure, honour and insult, praise and blame, justice done to us or injustice, everything that ordinarily affects the mind. If we see unity everywhere, if we recognise that all comes by the divine will, see God in all, in our enemies or rather our opponents in the game of life as well as our friends, in the powers that oppose and resist us as well as the powers that favour and assist, in all energies and forces and happenings, and if besides we can feel that all is undivided from our self, all the world one with us within our universal being, then this attitude becomes much easier to the heart and mind. But even before we can attain or are firmly seated in that universal vision, we have by all the means in our power to insist on this receptive and active equality and calm. Even something of it, alpam api asya dharmasya, is a great step towards perfection; a first firmness in it is the beginning of liberated perfection; its completeness is the perfect assurance of a rapid progress in all the other members of perfection. For without it we can have no solid basis; and by the pronounced lack of it we shall be constantly falling back to the lower status of desire, ego, duality, ignorance. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-action-of-equality#p5</ref>
 
===By Purification===
...purification is an essential means towards self-perfection. All these impurities and inadequacies result in various kinds of limitation and bondage: but there are two or three primary knots of the bondage,—ego is the principal knot,—from which the others derive. These bonds must be got rid of; purification is not complete till it brings about liberation. Besides, after a certain purification and liberation has been effected, there is still the conversion of the purified instruments to the law of a higher object and utility, a large, real and perfect order of action. By the conversion man can arrive at a certain perfection of fullness of being, calm, power and knowledge, even a greater vital action and more perfect physical existence. One result of this perfection is a large and perfected delight of being, Ananda.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-perfection-of-the-mental-being?search=perfection</ref>
The divine existence is of the nature not only of freedom, but of purity, beatitude and perfection. An integral purity which shall enable on the one hand the perfect reflection of the divine Being in ourselves and on the other the perfect outpouring of its Truth and Law in us in the terms of life and through the right functioning of the complex instrument we are in our outer parts, is the condition of an integral liberty. Its result is an integral beatitude, in which there becomes possible at once the Ananda of all that is in the world seen as symbols of the Divine and the Ananda of that which is not-world. And it prepares the integral perfection of our humanity as a type of the Divine in the conditions of the human manifestation, a perfection founded on a certain free universality of being, of love and joy, of play of knowledge and of play of will in power and will in unegoistic action. This integrality also can be attained by the integral Yoga. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-synthesis-of-the-systems#p19</ref>
 
===By Faith===
There is one kind of faith demanded as indispensable by the integral Yoga and that may be described as faith in God and the Shakti, faith in the presence and power of the Divine in us and the world, a faith that all in the world is the working of one divine Shakti, that all the steps of the Yoga, its strivings and sufferings and failures as well as its successes and satisfactions and victories are utilities and necessities of her workings and that by a firm and strong dependence on and a total self-surrender to the Divine and to his Shakti in us we can attain to oneness and freedom and victory and perfection.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/faith-and-shakti?search=perfection</ref>
This power of the soul over its nature is of the utmost importance in the Yoga of self-perfection; if it did not exist, we could never get by conscious endeavour ===By Education and aspiration out of the fixed groove of our present imperfect human being; if any greater perfection were intended, we should have to wait for Nature to effect it in her own slow or swift process of evolution. In the lower forms of being the soul accepts this complete subjection to Nature, but as it rises higher in the scale, it awakes to a sense of something in itself which can command Nature; but it is only when it arrives at self-knowledge that this free will and control becomes a complete reality. The change effects itself through process of nature, not therefore by any capricious magic, but an ordered development and intelligible process. When complete mastery is gained, then the process by its self-effective rapidity may seem a miracle to the intelligence, but it still proceeds by law of the truth of Spirit,—when the Divine within us by close union of our will and being with him takes up the Yoga and acts as the omnipotent master of the nature. For the Divine is our highest Self and the self of all Nature, the eternal and universal Purusha. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-psychology-of-self-perfection#p8</ref>Training===
The divine existence is of the nature not only of freedomIf you said to yourself, but of puritymy children, beatitude and perfection. An integral purity which shall enable on the one hand the "We want to be as perfect reflection of instruments as possible to express the divine Being Will in ourselves and on the other the world", then for this instrument to be perfect outpouring , it must be cultivated, educated, trained. It must not be left like a shapeless piece of its Truth and Law in us in the terms of life and through the right functioning of the complex instrument we are in our outer partsstone. When you want to build with a stone you chisel it; when you want to make a formless block into a beautiful diamond, is the condition of an integral libertyyou chisel it. Its result is an integral beatitudeWell, in which there becomes possible at once the Ananda of all that it is in the world seen as symbols of the Divine same thing. When with your brain and the Ananda of that which is not-world. And it prepares the integral perfection of our humanity as body you want to make a type of beautiful instrument for the Divine in the conditions of the human manifestation, a perfection founded on a certain free universality of beingyou must cultivate it, sharpen it, refine it, of love and joycomplete what is missing, of play of knowledge and of play of will in power and will in unegoistic action. This integrality also can be attained by the integral Yogaperfect what is there. (The Mother, 13 May 1953) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2305/the13-synthesis-of-themay-systems1953#p19p18</ref>
The way to attain to this perfect consciousness is to increase your actual consciousness beyond its present grooves and limits, to educate it, to open it to the Divine Light and to let the Divine Light work in it fully and freely. But the Light can do its full and unhindered work only when you have got rid of all craving and fear, when you have no mental prejudices, no vital preferences, no physical apprehensions or attractions to obscure or bind you. (The Mother, 30 June 1929) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/30-june-1929#p8</ref>
You stop short at Fundamentally, whatever be the perfection that others should realise and you are seldom conscious of path one follows—whether the goal you should be pursuing yourself. If you are conscious path of itsurrender, well thenconsecration, begin with the work which is given knowledge—if one wants it to yoube perfect, that it is to sayalways equally difficult, realise what you have to do and do not concern yourself with what others do, because, after all, it there is not your business. And the best but one way to the true attitude is simply to say, "All those around meone only, all the circumstances I know of my lifeonly one: that is perfect sincerity, all the people near mebut perfect sincerity! (The Mother, are a mirror held up to me by the Divine Consciousness to show me the progress I must make. Everything that shocks me in others means a work I have to do in myself." 12 May 1954) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/1006/aphorism12-may-81954#p15p34</ref>
==Difficulties==