A Conscious Devotee

Jan. 7, 2015

A Conscious Devotee

There are a group of Men who can be described as serious and responsible. To add goodness to them is very desirable, but not done easily. Let us suppose a small group of Men have done it substantially. Such Men, at least such a Man is one who deserves the praise of all thinking Men. To be serious, one has to collect his energies and concentrate them on his life goals. For the great majority, it does not arise, as they are an integral part of the society and the social goal is their goal. To view oneself as different from society is itself a serious view for a Man. Hourly consecration is a consciousness-device that helps solve a problem or fructify a project one’s social environment is not used to. It makes all one’s available energy available to solve one serious problem. Incidentally, when one takes to it, he will see how much energy is floating around him. There is a further aspect. At the point of its consummation, he will see signs of its wanting to grow. One who KNOWS knows that it is the inherent creative aspect of life forces. That is the aspect of life Man misses when he gives up a work as too difficult. One of the calls of Mother can be put as  ‘உள்ளே போ’ -- Go in.  All serious Men can do it. Our Mind is surface Mind having a range. Limiting it to the population in the society, it has two extreme ends. The lowest is the daily labourer who has no surplus from his wages. He is not one who can rise in life. Before the age of 40 he will discover he has no regular job and may not survive for a few years. At the other end children of the top elite entering life with astounding success build up their career systematically till they level off. A few, a rare few, continue to rise in higher dimensions of value. Both have their representative layers in our Mind which is surface Mind to Sri Aurobindo. In between, if social hierarchy is any guide, there are a hundred levels broadly grouped as ten. Anyone at any level when he can accept Hourly Consecration fully will soon rise to the top level. It is not the end, but a beginning of which he can fashion the rest. Seriousness is concentration. Responsibility is widely growing power. Both respond to exercise of will. Goodness responds to the soul, the psychic being. For human effort, the ready, full response issues out of the existing nature. Its crux is the Rakshasa or the Asura. All the effort of will aimed at harnessing goodness, a product of consciousness and Truth, will be readily absorbed by nature. In effect, the more one tries to be good, the more his personality will subconsciously organise as the asura. This is the truth of Nature, seen in human nature that readily defeats godly benevolence – blind man crossing the gold bar, readiness to lose one of his eyes. Sri Aurobindo declares that this transition from one side to another is simple and difficult. It is difficult to cease to be dark and harsh, it is simple to shift once you choose.

 In His chapter on Self-Consecration, HE tells us how this work is prolonged, laborious and needs to be done one at a time painstakingly. Let us consider one example. Anger is an emotion He always chooses and it is easy to illustrate. Anger is an intense self-defensive vital mechanism. He who is incapable of anger will soon find himself pushed down from his social level. Even to control it is not easy. How then is it to be transformed? What is it to be transformed into? Anger is an emotion. It is the reverse of that aspiration that seeks identity with God. It is for the sadhaka when he is mature. As a first step of reversal, anger is to be controlled. The control can be negative, neutral or positive. As a positive process, the urge to defend by offending becomes conscious of his true nature. This is a yoga of transformation, the main process being reversal. Mother makes fun of the reversal when She began to see consciousness as such. ‘If you are a poet, you can call it a reversal’, says SHE. There is no real reversal. Brahman, the Absolute, in becoming Brahman the relative acquires a consciousness that is capable of moving in either direction – towards the Absolute Being or the relative in creation. Presently Man who is the key to evolution is NOT conscious of this aspect of himself. Becoming conscious, he enters evolution, the ignorance changes into knowledge.  At the level of transforming anger into aspiration, the asura gives place to the impossible goodness. 

Man conveniently takes it for granted that he is a good man. Go in and see – it will be marked that there is no good vibration. Even those that are good are the version of the inverted complex of suppressing one’s evil. He will see it even on the surface. It is his duty to penetrate all the ten levels and acknowledge to himself what he really is. Going in and knowing himself truly, he must at each level choose one major expression for transformation.  One man had the goodness to declare that to think of anyone’s prosperity is difficult. Another devotee could say he would rather cut off his hand than give anything to anyone. The first thing is to mentally disown these ideas.  The luck of another person, especially a colleague, if it gives instinctive joy, it is right. It is an acid test. One should always without fail pass this test. The best way to achieve it is to think what luck each of your close friends and relatives can have and if possible, to work for them in one’s imagination and in life. Any GOOD man must be capable of this. Speaking truth utterly helps this inner transformation. Should a devotee pass this test in his own evaluation, he can test himself as to how real is this progress. The capacity NOT to exercise one’s powers with respect to another is a great test in power and human relationship as the earlier one is a test in emotion. One who sets his face against taking advantage of another and would come forward to grant freedom to others where it is right, will now qualify for Mother’s Prosperity. There are days in India where courses acquire value, even land rises in value. After all I am offering as திரண்டசெல்வம் Mother’s Prosperity the value of a few acres in a city like Bangalore. Man is certainly more valuable than an acre of land. One thing about such transformation all of us know. Magnanimous behaviour of good men of good impulse, often, if not always, leads to regret when the recipient is refractory. That is a test in which even a saint will fail. A devotee should certainly pass it. 

Human nature enjoys being intense. Fooling weak men, passing caustic sarcastic comments on someone are intense occasions. One should consciously endeavour to frame the very opposite thoughts. They will release a habitual joy. It is enough. Its yogic version is the creative joy that helps one do yoga. Events around you are symbolic. We know how to discern them. Around us there will be a few such events. Those events when positive confirm the right direction of our inner endeavour. If they are negative, our consecration will change its character. One who has native Good urges, speaks ONLY truth, when he finds around him only positive events, is ready to receive Mother’s Prosperity.