Changes

The personal effort required is a triple labour of aspiration, rejection and surrender, —an aspiration vigilant, constant, unceasing—the mind’s will, the heart’s seeking, the assent of the vital being, the will to open and make plastic the physical consciousness and nature;… <ref>http://incarnateword.in/sabcl/25/the-mother-ii#p3</ref>

Daily we must aspire to conquer all mistakes, all obscurities, all ignorances. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/aspiration#p16</ref>

We must aspire with all our being for the manifestation to come soon and complete. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/aspiration#p7</ref>

… by the intensity and persistence of your aspiration make all the parts of your being answer to the call and become one in the consecration. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/aspects-of-sadhana#p4</ref>

The central sincerity is the first thing and sufficient for an aspiration to be entertained—a total sincerity is needed for the aspiration to be fulfilled. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-newness-of-the-integral-yoga#p10</ref>

I think it is that: it is the habit of looking at oneself acting, looking at oneself living. It is necessary to observe oneself but I think it is still more necessary to try to be absolutely sincere and spontaneous, very spontaneous in what one does: not always to go on observing oneself, looking at what one is doing, judging oneself—sometimes severely. In fact it is almost as bad as patting oneself with satisfaction, the two are equally bad. One should be so sincere in his aspiration that he doesn’t even know he is aspiring, that he becomes the aspiration itself. When this indeed can be realised, one truly attains to an extraordinary power.

One minute, one minute of this, and you can prepare years of realisation. When one is no longer a self-regarding being, an ego looking at itself acting, when one becomes the action itself, above all in the aspiration, this truly is good. When there is no longer a person who is aspiring, when it is an aspiration which leaps up with a fully concentrated impulsion, then truly it goes very far. Otherwise there is always mixed up in it a little vanity, a little self-complacency, a little self-pity also, all kinds of little things which come and spoil everything. But it is difficult.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/17-november-1954#p6,p7</ref>

The most important is a steady, quiet endurance that does not allow any upsetting or depression to interfere with your progress. The sincerity of the aspiration is the assurance of the victory.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/endurance#p5</ref>

You must keep your aspiration steady and be patient in your endeavour—and you are sure of success. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/steady-effort#p4 </ref>

Continue doing your work with a simple and peaceful heart and a quiet mind. The aspiration will come gradually according to the need. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/difficulties-in-work#p33</ref>

And then there are those who have no aspiration, they try and they cannot aspire; it is because they do not have the flame of the will, it is because they do not have the flame of humility.

Both are needed. There must be a very great humility and a very great will to change one’s Karma. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/3-june-1953#p29,p30</ref>

The sadhana of this Yoga does not proceed through any set mental teaching or prescribed forms of meditation, mantras or others, but by aspiration, by a self-concentration inwards or upwards, by self-opening to an Influence, to the Divine Power above us and its workings, to the Divine Presence in the heart, and by the rejection of all that is foreign to these things. It is only by faith, aspiration and surrender that this self-opening can come. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-aim-of-the-integral-yoga#p3</ref>

This is the first thing necessary—aspiration for the Divine.

The flame of the aspiration must be so straight and so ardent that no obstacle can dissolve it.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/aspiration#p32</ref>

Each time that you discover in yourself something that denies or resists, throw it into the flame of Agni, which is the fire of aspiration.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/19-may-1967#p2</ref>

One keeps this fire lit by throwing into it all one’s difficulties, all one’s desires, all one’s imperfections. In the morning and evening when you come to me, you should ask me in your heart to keep the fire lit and offer me all these things as fuel. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/15-january-1936#p2</ref>

But for instance, when undesirable thoughts come, if you look at them, observe them, if you take pleasure in following them in their movements, they will never stop coming. It is the same thing when you have undesirable feelings or sensations: if you pay attention to them, concentrate on them or even look at them with a certain indulgence, they will never stop. But if you absolutely refuse to receive and express them, after some time they stop. You must be patient and very persistent.

“Aspiration, constant and sincere, and the will to turn to the Divine alone are the best means to bring forward the psychic.”

Fix a time every day when you can be free and undisturbed; sit comfortably and think of your psychic being with an aspiration to enter into contact with it. If you don’t succeed immediately, don’t be discouraged; you are sure to succeed one day. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/25-march-1970#p4,p5,p6</ref>

And if you concentrate (in the heart) by gathering the energies, it is better to gather them here, because it is in this centre, (the heart centre) in this region of the being that you find the will to progress, the force of purification, and the most intense and effective aspiration. The aspiration that comes from the heart is much more effective than that from the head.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/3-november-1954#p8</ref>

To concentrate in the head with the aspiration for quietude in the mind and the realisation of the Self and Divine above is the second way of concentration. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/seeking-the-divine#p3</ref>

Whatever you do, never forget the goal which you have set before you. There is nothing great or small once you have set out on this great discovery; all things are equally important and can either hasten or delay its success. Thus before you eat, concentrate a few seconds in the aspiration that the food you are about to eat may bring your body the substance it needs to serve as a solid basis for your effort towards the great discovery, and give it the energy for persistence and perseverance in the effort.

Before you act, concentrate in the will that your action may help or at least in no way hinder your march forward towards the great discovery. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/psychic-education-and-spiritual-education#p12,p13,p14</ref>

There are two actions which in practice merge into one.

The fundamental seat of aspiration from which it [Divine Love] radiates or manifests in one part of the being or another is the psychic centre.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/aspiration-in-the-physical-for-the-divines-love#p2</ref>

It is the psychic that gives the true aspiration — if the vital is purified and subjected to the psychic, then the vital gives intensity — but if it is unpurified it brings in a rajasic intensity with impatience and reactions of depression and disappointment. As for the calm and equality needed, it must come down from above through the mind.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/sabcl/23/basic-requisites-of-the-path-iii#p24</ref>

As soon as the presence of the psychic consciousness is united with the aspiration, the intensity takes on quite a different character, as if it were filled with the very essence of an inexpressible joy. This joy is something that seems contained in everything else. Whatever may be the outer form of the aspiration, whatever difficulties and obstacles it may meet, this joy is there as though it filled up everything, and it carries you in spite of everything.

Naturally the more one-pointed the aspiration the swifter the progress. The difficulty comes when either the vital with its desires or the physical with its past habitual movements comes in—as they do with almost everyone. It is then that the dryness and difficulty of spontaneous aspiration come. This dryness is a well-known obstacle in all sadhana. But one has to persist and not be discouraged. If one keeps the will fixed even in these barren periods, they pass and after their passage a greater force of aspiration and experience becomes possible.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/sabcl/23/basic-requisites-of-the-path-iii#p3</ref>

But do not listen to these suggestions of the voice that says, “You shall not succeed and it is no use trying.” That is a thing that need never be said in the Way of the Spirit, however difficult it may seem at the moment to be. Keep through all the aspiration … for it is certainly there and comes out from the depths, and if it is the cause of suffering — as great aspirations usually are in a world and nature where there is so much to oppose them — it is also the promise and surety of emergence and victory in the future.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/asceticism-and-the-integral-yoga#p29</ref>

Aspire for it, want it. Try to be less and less selfish, but not in the sense of becoming nice to other people or forgetting yourself, not that: have less and less the feeling that you are a person, a separate entity, something existing in itself, isolated from the rest.

But that moment should be absolutely sincere and as integral as possible; and all this must occur not only in the head, not only here, but must take place everywhere, in all the cells of the body. The consciousness integrally must have this irresistible need.... The thing lasts for some time, then diminishes, gets extinguished. You cannot keep these things for very long. But then it so happens that a moment later or the next day or some time later, suddenly you have the opposite experience. Instead of feeling this ascent, and all that, this is no longer there and you have the feeling of the Descent, the Answer. And nothing but the Answer exists. Nothing but the divine thought, the divine will, the divine energy, the divine action exists any longer. And you too, you are no longer there. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/20-may-1953#p22,p23,p24,p25,p26</ref>

For there is one part of the being which has an aspiration, there is one part of the being which gives itself, and there are other parts—sometimes a small part, some times a big one which hides nicely, right at the bottom, and keeps absolutely quiet so that it may not be found out, but which resists with all its might, so as not to change.

One must have a strong grip and an unshakable resolution. As in our Japanese story of the other day, that soldier who had a knife in his knee in order to make sure of not falling asleep... and when he felt very sleepy, he turned the knife in such a way that it hurt him still more. One must have something like that. This, this is determination: to know what one wants and to do it.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/21-july-1954#p44,p45,p46,p47,p48</ref>

When you have an aspiration, a very active aspiration, your aspiration is going to do its work. It is going to call down the answer to what you aspire for. But if, later, you begin to think of something else or are not attentive or receptive, you do not even notice that your aspiration has received an answer. This happens very frequently. So people tell you: “I aspire and I don’t receive anything, I get no answer!” Yes, you do have an answer but you are not aware of it, because you continue to be active in this way, like a mill turning all the time.