4,400
edits
Changes
→Why Are Efforts Needed?
Personal effort is indispensable; without it nothing can be done. When the personal effort is sincere the help is always there.
<ref> http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/steady-effort#p16</ref>
It is only effort, in whatever domain it be—material effort, moral effort, intellectual effort—which creates in the being certain vibrations which enable you to get connected with universal vibrations; and it is this which gives joy. It is effort which pulls you out of inertia; it is effort which makes you receptive to the universal forces. And the one thing above all which spontaneously gives joy, even to those who do not practise yoga, who have no spiritual aspiration, who lead quite an ordinary life, is the exchange of forces with universal forces...
...a man sits down to write a book, he makes an effort which sets vibrating something in his brain to attract ideas; well, suddenly, this man experiences joy. It is quite certain that, whatever you do, even the most material work, like sweeping a room or cooking, if you make the necessary effort to do this work to the maximum of your ability, you will feel joy, even if what you do is against your nature. When you want to realise something, you make quite spontaneously the necessary effort; this concentrates your energies on the thing to be realised and that gives a meaning to your life. This compels you to a sort of organisation of yourself, a sort of concentration of your energies, because it is this that you wish to do and not fifty other things which contradict it. And it is in this concentration, this intensity of the will, that lies the origin of joy. This gives you the power to receive energies in exchange for those you spend.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/13-january-1951#p14,p15</ref>
''An aim gives a meaning, a purpose to life, and this purpose implies an effort; and it is in effort that one finds joy?''
... one can't live without effort! If one were to refuse to make any effort, one would not even be able to stand on one's legs or walk or even eat. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/12-september-1956#p5</ref>
Effort well-directed breaks down all obstacles.<ref> http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/steady-effort#p10 </ref>
Steady efforts always bring great results. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/steady-effort#p6 </ref>
Generally, the lower nature is always active. It is only when one has surrendered completely that it stops being active. When one is no longer in his lower consciousness, when one has made a total surrender, then the lower nature is no longer active. But so long as it is active, personal effort is necessary.
==To Get Out of Inertia==
The period of no-effort is usually when the physical consciousness is uppermost—for the nature of that is inertia, to be moved by the higher forces or to be moved by the lower forces or any forces, but not to move itself. One must still use one's effort if one can, but the great thing is to be able to call down the Force from above into the physical—otherwise to remain perfectly quiet and, undisturbed, expect its coming. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/difficulties-of-the-physical-nature#p26</ref>
It is that effort that I am asking for, a triumph over tamas and lazy indifference. <ref> <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/18-july-1964#p5 </ref>
[Based on Aphorism 9 - What the soul sees and has experienced, that it knows; the rest is appearance, prejudice and opinion] <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-9#p4</ref>
It is a fact that when one has made an effort not to lose time on the way, any time lost becomes a suffering and one can find no pleasure of any kind in it. And once you are in that state, once this effort for progress and transformation becomes the most important thing in your life, the thing to which you give constant thought, then indeed you are on the way towards the eternal existence, the truth of your being. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/vigilance#p46 </ref> It is only with the sadhana and a very persistent effort that one succeeds in having a conscious contact with his psychic being. Naturally, it is possible that there are exceptional cases—but this is truly exceptional, and they are so few that they could be counted—where the psychic being is an entirely formed, liberated being, master of itself, which has chosen to return to earth in a human body in order to do its work. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/17-august-1955#p18</ref>
It is only with the sadhana and a very persistent effort that one succeeds in having a conscious contact with his psychic being. Naturally, it is possible that there are exceptional cases—but this is truly exceptional, and they are so few that they could be counted—where the psychic being is an entirely formed, liberated being, master of itself, which has chosen to return to earth in a human body in order to do its work.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/17-august-1955#p18</ref>
Each one of you should be able to get into touch with your own psychic being, it is not an inaccessible thing. Your psychic being is there precisely to put you in contact with the divine forces. And if you are in contact with your psychic being, you begin to feel, to have a kind of perception of what Divine Love can be. it is not like that. If, through a sustained effort, a deep concentration, a great forgetfulness of self, you succeed in coming into touch with your psychic being...you are in a state in which everything appears to you to be this Divine Love and nothing else. And yet it is only a covering, but a covering of a beautiful texture....
You must make an effort to come into touch with your psychic being, to become aware and free in the consciousness of your psychic being, and then, quite naturally, spontaneously, you will know what Divine Love is...<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/24-march-1951#p25,p28</ref>
… a truly harmonious personality implies a conscious arrangement of the inner individualities. This arrangement may be effected spontaneously before birth, but that is rare. The arrangement is achieved later, by means of a discipline, a proper education. But to succeed in this one must consciously take the psychic being as the centre and arrange, harmonise the various individualities around it. True harmony, inner organisation is the result of such a persistent effort. <ref> http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/30-december-1950#p14 </ref>
A man who has no intellectual culture, if you give him some mixed ideas, just at random, to choose from, he will always choose the stupid ones; because, as Sri Aurobindo has told us, this is a world of falsehood, of ignorance and an effort is needed, an aspiration; one must come in contact with one's inmost being—a conscious and luminous contact—if one is to distinguish the true from the false, the good influence from the bad. If you let yourself go, you sink into a hole.<ref> http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/the-world#p16</ref>
''The effort one can make can be only mental. What can one do to make it spontaneous?''
I believe there is a vast difference between an effort for transformations which, precisely, comes from the psychic centre of the being and a kind of mental constructions to obtain something.
http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/19-may-1954#p34
==To Progress==
As soon as we think of the result we begin to bargain and that takes away all sincerity from the effort. You make an effort to progress because you feel within you the need, the ''imperative'' need to make an effort and progress; and this effort is the gift you offer to the Divine Consciousness in you, the Divine Consciousness in the Universe, it is your way of expressing your gratitude, offering your self; and whether this results in progress or not is of no importance. You will progress when it is decided that the time has come to progress and not because you desire it. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/23-april-1958#p5 </ref>
One has in his consciousness the feeling of rising above what is obscure and ordinary and unconscious, of raising himself—because usually our head is on top and our head is more conscious than the rest of our body—and the impression that there is above him a greater consciousness. So when one makes an effort to progress, at the same time one makes an effort of ascent. Sometimes one has even symbolically the impression of climbing a mountain and wanting to reach the summit, that is, as close as possible to the free expanses of the light, of what is purer. And if one doesn't take care, quite naturally, spontaneously, one slips back into the ordinary consciousness.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/30-march-1955#p18</ref>
=How to Make Efforts?=