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| − | =How Can One Achieve Calm?=
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| − | ''Q:Make calm come to us, you mean? How?''
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| − | ''A:'' Simply as when you want to call someone, you call him, don't you? (Laughter) It is the same thing. You must remain as calm as you can and wish for calm, aspire for calm, call calm, like that, remaining as calm as you can at that moment. Ask to be yet calmer. Want calm. But all this calmly, because if you want it agitatedly, calm will not come. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/20-october-1954#p32</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | It is as though you were learning how to call a friend: by dint of being called he comes. Well, make peace and calm your friends and call them: "Come, peace, peace, peace, peace, come!"<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/8-september-1954#p46</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | But now you are more sober and undoubtedly you are more calm and quiet, until the day there will be no attachments any longer but luminous and sweet sympathies without any demand or egoism. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/attachment-to-others#p7</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | As soon as there is something which affects the solar plexus, you must say, "calm... calm... calm", become more and more calm until the tension is destroyed.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/31-march-1951#p18</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | Try to keep as quiet and calm as possible and... let it pass away!
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/31-october-1963#p4</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | Never get excited, nervous or agitated. Remain perfectly calm in the face of all circumstances. And yet be always alert to discover what progress you still have to make and lose no time in making it.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/psychic-education-and-spiritual-education#p9</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | ...face the problem, but with the calm and certitude of an absolute trust in the supreme Power which knows, and can make you act. And then, instead of abandoning action, one can act in a higher peace that is strong and dynamic.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/26-march-1958#p10</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | Remain quiet, open yourself and call the divine Shakti to confirm the calm and peace, to widen the consciousness and to bring into it as much light and power as it can at present receive and assimilate.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/peace-the-basis-of-the-sadhana#p17</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | There can be no firm foundation in sadhana without equality, samatā. Whatever the unpleasantness of circumstances, however disagreeable the conduct of others, you must learn to receive them with a perfect calm and without any disturbing reaction. These things are the test of equality. It is easy to be calm and equal when things go well and people and circumstances are pleasant; it is when they are the opposite that the completeness of the calm, peace, equality can be tested, reinforced, made perfect. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/equality-the-chief-support#p2</ref>
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| − | ==Methods==
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| − | One could justifiably add a question: You tell us "Be calm", but what should we do to be calm?... The answer is always more or less the same: you must first of all feel the need for it and want it, and then aspire, and then try! For trying, there are innumerable methods which have been prescribed and attempted by many. These methods are generally long, arduous, difficult; and many people get discouraged before reaching the goal, for, the more they try, the more do their thoughts start whirling around and being restless in their heads.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/17-october-1956#p15</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | You sit quietly, to begin with; and then, instead of thinking of fifty things, you begin saying to yourself, "Peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, calm, peace!" You imagine peace and calm. You aspire, ask that it may come: "Peace, peace, calm." And then, when something comes and touches you and acts, say quietly, like this, "Peace, peace, peace." Do not look at the thoughts, do not listen to the thoughts, you understand. You must not pay attention to everything that comes. You know, when someone bothers you a great deal and you want to get rid of him, you don't listen to him, do you? Good! You turn your head away (‘‘gesture’’) and think of something else. Well, you must do that: when thoughts come, you must not look at them, must not listen to them, must not pay any attention at all, you must behave as though they did not exist, you see! And then, repeat all the time like a kind of—how shall I put it?—as an idiot does, who repeats the same thing always. Well, you must do the same thing; you must repeat, "Peace, peace, peace." So you try this for a few minutes and then do what you have to do; and then, another time, you begin again; sit down again and then try. Do this on getting up in the morning, do this in the evening when going to bed. You can do this... look, if you want to digest your food properly, you can do this for a few minutes before eating. You can't imagine how much this helps your digestion! Before beginning to eat you sit quietly for a while and say, "Peace, peace, peace!" and everything becomes calm. It seems as though all the noises were going far, far, far away ("Mother stretches out her arms on both sides") and then you must continue; and there comes a time when you no longer need to sit down, and no matter what you are doing, no matter what you are saying, it is always "Peace, peace, peace." Everything remain here, like this, it does not enter (gesture in front of the forehead), it remain like this. And then one is always in a perfect peace... after some years. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/8-september-1954#p45</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | You must lie flat on your back and relax all the muscles and all the nerves—it is an easy thing to learn—to be like what I call a rag on a bed: nothing else remains. And if you can do that with the mind also, you get rid of all those stupid dreams that make you more tired when you get up than when you went to bed. It is the cellular activity of the brain that continues without control, and that tires one much. So, a total relaxation, a sort of complete calm, without tension, in which everything is stopped. But this is only the beginning. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/4-june-1960#p3</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | There are many methods, but I will give you one. First, your body must be comfortable, on a bed, in an easy-chair—anywhere so long as it is comfortable. Then you learn how to relax your nerves one after the other, until you achieve complete relaxation. You should relax all your nerves—you can relax them all together, but perhaps it is easier to relax them one after the other, and this becomes very interesting. And when that is done, you must make your brain quiet and silent and at the same time keep your body like a rag on the bed. You must make the brain so still and absolutely quiet that it is not aware of itself. And then, don't try to sleep, but pass very gently from this state into sleep without being aware of it. When you wake up the next morning you will be full of energy. But if you go to bed very tired and without even trying to relax, to calm down, you will fall into a heavy, dull and unconscious sleep and the vital will lose all its energy. Perhaps this won't have any immediate effect, but it is better to try it than to plunge into sleep when you are very tired.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/1-february-1951#p21</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | When one wants to detach oneself from something, from a certain movement or activity or state of consciousness, this is the most effective method; one steps back a little, watches the thing like that, as one would watch a scene in a play, and one doesn't intervene. And a moment later, the thing doesn't concern you any longer, it is something which takes place outside you. Then you become very calm.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/4-april-1956#p7</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | Before you go to sleep, concentrate a few seconds in the aspiration that the sleep may restore your fatigued nerves, bring calm and quietness to your brain so that on waking you may, with renewed vigour, begin again your journey on the path of the great discovery.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/psychic-education-and-spiritual-education#p13</ref>
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| − | ==In Different Parts of Being==
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| − | ===Physical===
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| − | One must be calm and equal, not getting upset or dissatisfied when the food is not tasty or not in abundance—eating the fixed amount that is necessary, not less or more. There should be neither eagerness nor repugnance.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/food#p12</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | It is a pity! Perhaps you are a bit tired. I hope you are sleeping well. I would like you to go to bed earlier. Is all this work after meditation discussions, accounts, etc. really indispensable? To keep one's self-control, one needs to have time enough to rest, enter into oneself and find calm and quiet.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/19-october-1938#p3</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | In any case one thing you can do in all security is, before going to sleep, to concentrate, relax all tension in the physical being, try... that is, in the body try so that the body lies like a soft rag on the bed, that it is no longer something with twitchings and cramps; to relax it completely as though it were a kind of thing like a rag. And then, the vital: to calm it, calm it as much as you can, make it as quiet, as peaceful as possible. And then the mind also—the mind, try to keep it like that, without any activity. You must put upon the brain the force of great peace, great quietude, of silence if possible, and not follow ideas actively, not make any effort, nothing, nothing; you must relax all movement there too, but relax it in a kind of silence and quietude as great as possible.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/2-march-1955#p10</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | Well, once you have the control you can stop that completely... stop it before going to sleep... make yourself like a vast sea, that is, it is completely calm and still and vast... well, you can make your mind like that, vast, calm, like a flat, motionless surface; then your sleep is excellent.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/13-april-1955#p23</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | A consequent calm content and disappearance of egoistic attachment to the work and its personal results, but at the same time a great joy in the work and in the use of the capacities for the divine purpose.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/work-and-yoga#p18</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | ...it is necessary first to establish the entire openness of the physical being and stabilise in it the descent of calm.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-transformation-of-the-physical#p12</ref>
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| − | ===Mental===
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| − | It is quite natural that at first there should be the condition of calm and peace only when you sit for concentration. What is important is that there should be this condition.
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| − | If the desires were thrown out and the ego less active and the physical mind at rest knowledge would come from above; in place of the physical mind's stupidities, the vital mind could be calm and quiet and the Mother's Force take up the action and the higher consciousness begin to come down. That is the proper sequel of emptiness. But nothing of this has happened because the "emptiness" could not complete itself, that is to say, the true silence and peace.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/emptiness-voidness-blankness-and-silence#p10</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | The feeling of calm and comparative absence of disturbing thoughts. This means the growth of quietude of mind which is necessary for a fully effective meditation.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/descent-and-other-kinds-of-experience#p14</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | ...try to become calm and silent; not only to avoid chattering outwardly, but to try to silence your mind and gather your consciousness which is dispersed in all the thoughts you have and your preoccupations; to gather it, bring it back within yourself as completely as possible and concentrate it here, in the region of the heart, near the solar plexus, so that all the active energies in the head and all that keeps the brain running, may be brought back and concentrated here. This can be done in a few seconds, it can take a few minutes: that depends on each one. Well, this is a preparatory attitude. And then, once this is done—or done as well as you can do it—you may take two attitudes, that is, an active attitude or a passive attitude. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/7-february-1957#p6</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | And if, in the mental silence, a part of the being can take the attitude of the witness who observes without reacting or participating, then one can notice the effect that the music produces on the feelings and emotions; and if it produces a state of deep calm and semi-trance, that is very good.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/15-november-1959#p4</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | ...whenever you sit and the pressure for it always there. But at other times the result is at first only a certain mental quiet and freedom from thoughts. Afterwards when the condition of peace is quite settled in the inner being—for it is the inner into which you enter whenever you concentrate—then it begins to come out and control the outer, so that the calm and peace remain even when working, mixing with others, talking or other occupations. For then whatever the outer consciousness is doing, one feels the inner being calm within—indeed one feels the inner being as one's real self while the outer is something superficial through which the inner acts on life.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/concentration-and-meditation#p76</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | If you are able to keep such an attitude, if you have this repose and quiet trust in your being and wait for what may be revealed to you, then something like this happens: you are, as it were, in a wood, dark and noiseless; you see in front of you merely a sheet of water, dark and still, hardly visible—a bit of a pond imbedded in the obscurity; and slowly upon it a moonbeam is cast and in the cool dim light emerges the calm liquid surface. That is how your secret truth of being will appear and present itself to you at your first contact with it: there you will see gradually reflected the true qualities of your being, the traits of your divine personality, what you really are and what you are meant to be.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/12-november-1952#p7</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | The attitude of the witness consciousness within—I do not think it necessarily involves an external seclusion, though one may do that also—is a very necessary stage in the progress. It helps the liberation from the lower prakriti—not getting involved in the ordinary nature movements; it helps the establishment of a perfect calm and peace within, for there is then one part of the being which remains detached and sees without being disturbed the perturbations of the surface; it helps also the ascent into the higher consciousness and the descent of the higher consciousness, for it is through this calm, detached and liberated inner being that the ascent and descent can easily be done. Also, to have the same witness look on the movements of Prakriti in others, seeing, understanding but not perturbed by them in any way is a very great help towards both the liberation and the universalisation of the being. I could not therefore possibly object to this movement in a sadhak. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/inner-detachment-and-the-witness-attitude#p35</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | If you separate yourself from these movements and establish calm and peace inside, the passions may still rise on the surface, but they will be felt to be external movements and you can deal with them or call down the divine aid to get rid of them. So long as the mind does not fall quiet, it is not possible to deal finally with the vital being from which these forces rise.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/qualities-needed-for-sadhana#p13</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | To be calm, steady, fixed in the spirit, dhīra, sthira, this quietude of the mind, this separation of the inner Purusha from the outer Prakriti is very helpful, almost indispensable. So long as the being is subject to the whirl of thoughts or the turmoil of the vital movements one cannot be thus calm and fixed in the spirit. To detach oneself, to stand back from them, to feel them separate from oneself is indispensable. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/silence#p19</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | For the buzz of the physical mind, reject it quietly, without getting disturbed, till it feels discouraged and retires shaking its head and saying, "This fellow is too calm and strong for me." There are always two things that can rise up and assail the silence,—vital suggestions, the physical mind's mechanical recurrences. calm rejection for both is the cure. There is a Purusha within who can dictate to the nature what it shall admit or exclude, but its will is a strong, quiet will; if one gets perturbed or agitated over the difficulties, then the will of the Purusha cannot act effectively as it would otherwise.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/concentration-and-meditation#p40</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | ...the most important thing of all is to make the mind clear, to quieten the emotions and calm the effervescence of desires and the preoccupations which accompany them. If before retiring to bed one has talked a lot or had a lively discussion, if one has read an exciting or intensely interesting book, one should rest a little without sleeping in order to quieten the mental activity, so that the brain does not engage in disorderly movements while the other parts of the body alone are asleep. Those who practise meditation will do well to concentrate for a few minutes on a lofty and restful idea, in an aspiration towards a higher and vaster consciousness. Their sleep will benefit greatly from this and they will largely be spared the risk of falling into unconsciousness while they sleep. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/the-four-austerities-and-the-four-liberations#p16</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | There is no longer any need to accumulate acquired knowledge, received ideas which have to be memorised; it is no longer necessary to clutter one's brain with thousands and thousands of things in order to have at one's command, when the time comes, the knowledge that is needed to perform an action, to impart a teaching, to solve a problem. The mind is silent, the brain is still, everything is clear, quiet, calm; and at the right moment, by divine Grace a drop of light falls into the consciousness and what needs to be known is known. Why should one care to remember—why try to retain that knowledge? On the day or at the moment that it is needed one will have it again. At each second one is a blank page on which what must be known will be inscribed—in the peace, the repose, the silence of a perfect receptivity. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-4#p3</ref>
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| − | ===Vital===
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| − | Surrender everything, reject all other desires or interests, call on the divine Shakti to open the vital nature and bring down calm, peace, light, Ananda into all the centres. Aspire, await with faith and patience the result. All depends on a complete sincerity and an integral consecration and aspiration.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/surrender#p50</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | The unsatisfying surface play of our feeble egoistic emotions must be ousted and there must be revealed instead a secret deep and vast psychic heart within that waits behind them for its hour; all our feelings, impelled by this inner heart in which dwells the Divine, will be transmuted into calm and intense movements of a twin passion of divine Love and manifold Ananda.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/self-surrender-in-works-the-way-of-the-gita#p4</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | ...the neutral state, can deepen into positive calm and peace by a greater influx from above which keeps the vital not only quiescent but at least passively acquiescent. With the active interest and consent of the vital the peace becomes a glad or joyful peace or a strong peace supporting and entering into action or active experience. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/wrong-movements-of-the-vital#p29</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | As soon as there is the least sign of discontentment, of annoyance, the vital must be spoken to in this way, "My friend, you are going to keep calm, you are going to do what you are asked to do, otherwise you will have to deal with me." And to the other, the enthusiast who says, "Everything must be done now, immediately", your reply is, "calm yourself a little, your energy is excellent, but it must not be spent in five minutes. We shall need it for a long time, keep it carefully and, as it is wanted, I shall call upon your goodwill. You will show that you are full of goodwill, you will obey, you won't grumble, you will not protest, you will not revolt, you will say 'yes, yes', you will make a little sacrifice when asked, you will say 'yes' whole-heartedly."
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/26-march-1951#p13</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | The human vital is almost always of that nature [full of desires and fancies], but that is no reason why one should accept it as an unchangeable fact and allow a restless vital to drive one as it likes...In Yoga one uses the inner will and compels the vital to submit itself to tapasya so that it may become calm, strong, obedient—or else one calls down the calm from above obliging the vital to renounce desire and become quiet and receptive. The vital is a good instrument but a bad master. If you allow it to follow its likes and dislikes, its fancies, its desires, its bad habits, it becomes your master and peace and happiness are no longer possible. It becomes not your instrument or the instrument of the Divine Shakti, but of any force of the Ignorance or even any hostile force that is able to seize and use it. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-nature-of-the-vital#p23</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | It is better not to involve oneself in the dispute and to leave the combatants to throw their brahmastras at each other, oneself safe in a calm and judicious indifference. It is also the attitude most helpful to the sadhana. Of opinions and discussions there is no end and it is much better to remain inside and advance towards another light than the mind's—though there is more fire of a smoky kind than light in these discussions.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/problems-in-human-relations#p20</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | The first thing is to call down the calm into the mind and the vital; with the calm established or in course of preparation to invite more and more the Mother's workings and grow conscious of them within you and give your assent to them and refuse all else. All the rest then comes in its time and by the proper process.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/opening#p21</ref>
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| − |
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| − | ===Spiritual===
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| − | The first thing to do is to make the full consecration and offering in the heart—the increase of the spiritual calm and the surrender are the condition for making the rejection of ego, rajoguna etc. effective.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/equality-the-chief-support#p11</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | By its very nature the psychic is calm.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-soul-the-psychic#p88</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | ...you manage to shift your consciousness into a higher domain, above the ordinary mind, this opening to the Light calms the mind, it does not stir any longer, and the mental silence so obtained can become constant. Once you enter into this domain, you may very well never come out of it—the external mind always remains calm. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/8-march-1951#p4</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | When the consciousness as well as the action is free from ego and desire, there is always a fundamental calm. This calm remains whether sattwa predominates or not. Sattwa need not always predominate, because to become sattwic is not the object of sadhana. To need to be always sattwic would be a limitation. Whatever guna predominates in the action, to be free, desireless, calm behind all actions, is the condition of the liberated man.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-sankhya-yoga-system#p49</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | The quiet consciousness of peace you now have in the mind must become not only calm but wide. You must feel it everywhere, yourself in it and all in it. This also will help to bring the calm as a basis into the action.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/peace-the-basis-of-the-sadhana#p14</ref>
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| − |
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| − | ==By Surrender==
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| − | This complete self-surrender must be the chief mainstay of the sadhaka because it is the only way, apart from complete quiescence and indifference to all action,—and that has to be avoided,—by which the absolute calm and peace can come. The persistence of trouble, aśānti, the length of time taken for this purification and perfection, itself must not be allowed to become a reason for discouragement and impatience. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-action-of-equality#p4</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | It is only when one gives oneself in all sincerity to the Divine Will that one has the peace and calm joy which come from the abolition of desires.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/4-february-1972#p2</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | At first the peace and calm are not continuous, they come and go, and it usually takes a long time to get them settled in the nature. It is better therefore to avoid impatience and to go on steadily with what is being done. If you wish to have something beyond the peace and calm, let it be the full opening of the inner being and the consciousness of the Divine Power working in you. Aspire for that sincerely and with a great intensity but without impatience and it will come.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-danger-of-the-ego-and-the-need-of-purification#p58</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | To get rid of it one must have always a sense of complete reliance on the Mother, of surrender; that brings a calm which refuses to be moved by any outward happening or by what people do or say, a happiness which is not disturbed by any occurrence.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/wrong-movements-of-the-vital#p80</ref>
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| − | <center>~</center>
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| − | ...by this surrender there comes also a calm and happy mastery of self and nature.
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| − | <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/surrender#p59</ref>
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