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There
is not one psychological
perfection but five, like the
five petals of this flower. We
have said they are: sincerity,
faith, devotion, aspiration and
surrender. But as a matter of
fact every time I give this
flower it is not always the same
psychological perfection, it is
something very fluid, depending
on the circumstances and the need
of people. |
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____The
white Champak flower, Plumeria,
is named by the Mother
'Psychological Perfection'. It
has five petals. In this
beautiful talk the Mother reveals
the meaning of each petal and the
quality it signifies for the
aspiring sadhak and, with a
unique psychological insight,
throws a new light on the true
meaning of each quality. The talk
begins with the Mother showing
the Champak flower and counting
its petals. |
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____Who
remembers this? |
____(Counting
the petals) One, two, three,
four, five psychological
perfections. What are the five
psychological perfections?.... |
____So, if
someone knows it, he can tell us,
we'll compare.... |
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____Aspiration,
devotion, sincerity and faith.
That makes only four, so far. And
surrender. |
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____In any case, what
is always there, in all
combinations and to whomever I
give it, the first among them all
is sincerity. For if there is
no sincerity, one cannot advance
even by half a step. So that is
the first, and it is always
there. |
____But it
is possible to translate it by
another word, if you prefer it,
which would be "transparency".
I shall explain this word:
Someone is in front of me and I
am looking at him; I look into
his eyes. And if this person is
sincere or
"transparent", through
his eyes I go down and I see his
soul - clearly. But - this is
precisely the experience - when I
look at somebody and see a little
cloud, then I continue, I see a
screen, and then sometimes it is
a wall, and afterwards it is
something quite black; and all
this must be crossed, and holes
bored in order to go through: and
even then I am not sure if at the
last minute I may not find myself
before a door of bronze so thick
that I shall never get through
and see his soul; so, of such a
person I can immediately say that
he is not sincere. But I can also
say, figuratively, that he is not
transparent. That is the first
thing. |
____There is a
second, which is obviously, as
indispensable if you want to go
forward; it is to have faith. Or another
word, which seems more limited
but is for me more important,
because (it is a question of
experience) if your faith is not
made of a complete trust in the Divine,
well, you may very easily remain
under the impression that you
have faith and yet be losing all
trust in the divine Power or
divine Goodness, or the Trust the
Divine has in you. These are the
three stumbling-blocks: |
____Those
who have what they call an
unshakable faith in the Divine,
and say, "It is the Divine
who is doing everything, who can
do everything; all that happens
in me, in others, everywhere, is
the work of the Divine and the
Divine alone", if they
follow this with some kind of
logic, after some time they will
blame the Divine for all the most
terrible wrongs which take place
in the world and make of Him a
real demon, cruel and frightful -
if they have no trust. |
____Or
again, they do have faith, but
tell themselves, "Well, I
have faith in the Divine, but
this world, I see quite well what
it's like! First of all, I suffer
so much, don't I? I am very
unhappy, far more unhappy than
all my neighbours" - for one
is always far more unhappy than
all one's neighbours - "I am
very unhappy and, truly, life is
cruel to me. |
____But then
the Divine is divine. He is
AllGoodness, All-Generosity,
All-Harmony, so how is it that I
am so unhappy? He must be
powerless; otherwise being so
good how could He let me suffer
so much?" |
____That is
the second stumbling-block. |
____And the
third: there are people who have
what may be called a warped and
excessive modesty or humility and
who tell themselves, "Surely
the Divine has thrown me out. I
am good for nothing. He can do
nothing with me, the only thing
for me is to give up the game,
for He finds me unworthy of
Him!" |
____So,
unless one adds to faith a total
and complete trust in the Divine
Grace, there will be
difficulties. So both are
necessary.... |
____Now, we have put
"devotion" in this
series. Yes, devotion is all very
well, but unless it is
accompanied by many other things
it too may make many mistakes. It
may meet with great difficulties. |
____You have
devotion, and you keep your ego.
And then your ego makes you do
all sorts of things out of
devotion, things which are
terribly egoistic. That is to
say, you think only of yourself,
not of others, nor of the world,
nor of the work, nor of what
ought to be done - you think only
of your devotion. And you become
tremendously egoistic. And so,
when you find out that the
Divine, for some reason, does not
answer to your devotion with the
enthusiasm you expected of Him,
you despair and fall back into
the same three difficulties I was
just speaking about: either the
Divine is cruel - we have read
that, there are many such
stories, of enthusiastic devotees
who abuse the Divine because He
is no longer as gentle and near
to them as before. He has
withdrawn, "Why hast Thou
deserted me? Thou hast abandoned
me, 0 monster!... They don't dare
to say this, but think it, or
else they say, "Oh! I must
have made such a serious mistake
that I am thrown out", and
they fall into despair. |
____But
there is another movement which
should constantly accompany
devotion.... That kind of sense
of gratitude that
the Divine exists; that feeling
of a marvelling thankfulness
which truly fills you with a
sublime joy at the fact that the
Divine exists, that there is
something in the universe which
is the Divine, that it is not
just the monstrosity we see, that
there is the Divine, the Divine
exists. And each time that the
least thing puts you either
directly or indirectly in contact
with this sublime Reality of
divine existence, the heart is
filled with so intense, so
marvellous a joy, such a
gratitude as of all things has
the most delightful taste. |
____There is
nothing which gives you a joy
equal to that of gratitude. One
hears a bird sing, sees a lovely
flower, looks at a little child,
observes an act of generosity,
reads a beautiful sentence, looks
at the setting sun, no matter
what, suddenly this comes upon
you, this kind of emotion -
indeed so deep, so intense - that
the world manifests the Divine,
that there is something behind
the world which is the Divine. |
____So I
find that devotion without
gratitude is quite incomplete,
gratitude must come with
devotion. |
____I
remember that once we spoke of courage as one
of the perfections; I remember
having written it down once in a
list. But this courage means
having a taste for the supreme
adventure. And this taste for
supreme adventure is aspiration -
an aspiration which takes hold of
you completely and flings you,
without calculation and without
reserve and without a possibility
of withdrawal, into the great
adventure of the divine
discovery, the great adventure of
the divine meeting, the yet
greater adventure of the divine
Realisation; you throw yourself
into the adventure without
looking back and without asking
for a single minute, "What's
going to happen?" For if you
ask what is going to happen, you
never start, you always remain
stuck there, rooted to the spot,
afraid to lose something, to lose
your balance. |
____That's
why I speak of courage - but
really it is aspiration. They
go together. A real aspiration is
something full of courage. |
____And now,
surrender. In
English the word is
"surrender", there is
no French word which gives
exactly that sense. But Sri
Aurobindo has said - I think we
have read this - that surrender
is the first and absolute
condition for doing the yoga. So,
if we follow what he has said,
this is not just one of the
necessary qualities: it is the
first attitude indispensable for
beginning the yoga. If one has
not decided to make a total
surrender, one cannot begin. |
____But for
this surrender to be total, all
these qualities are necessary.
And I add one more - for so far
we have only four - I add endurance. For,
if you are not able to face
difficulties without getting
discouraged and without giving
up, because it is too difficult;
and if you are incapable... well,
of receiving blows and yet
continuing, of
"pocketing" them, as
they say - when you receive blows
as a result of your defects, of
putting them in your pocket and
continuing to go forward without
flagging - you don't go very far;
at the first turning where you
lose sight of your little
habitual life, you fall into
despair and give up the game. |
____The
most... how shall I put it? the
most material form of this is perseverance. Unless
you are resolved to begin the
same thing over again a thousand
times if need be... You know,
people come to me in despair,
"But I thought it was done
and now I must begin again!"
And if they are told, "But
that's nothing, you will probably
have to begin again a hundred
times, two hundred times, a
thousand times; you take one step
forward and think you are secure,
but there will always be
something to bring back the same
difficulty a little farther on. |
____You think you
have solved the problem, you must
solve it yet once again; it will
turn up again looking just a
little different, but it will be
the same problem", and if
you are not determined that:
"Even if it comes back a
million times, I shall do it a
million times, but I shall go
through with it", well, you
won't be able to do the yoga.
This is absolutely indispensable. |
____People
have a beautiful experience and
say, "Ah, now this is
it!..." And then it settles
down, diminishes, gets veiled,
and suddenly something quite
unexpected, absolutely
commonplace and apparently
completely uninteresting comes
before you and blocks your way.
And then you say, "Ah!
what's the good of having made
this progress if it's going to
start all over again? Why should
I do it? I made an effort, I
succeeded, achieved something,
and now it's as if I had done
nothing! It's indeed
hopeless." For you have no
endurance. |
____If one
has endurance, one says,
"It's all right. Good. I
shall begin again as often as
necessary; a thousand times, ten
thousand times, a hundred
thousand times if necessary, I
shall begin again - but I shall
go to the end and nothing will
have the power to stop me on the
way." |
____This is
most necessary. Most necessary. |
____So
here's my proposal; we put
surrender first, at the top of
the list, that is, we accept what
Sri Aurobindo has said - that to
do the integral yoga one must
first resolve to surrender
entirely to the Divine, there is
no other way, this is the way.
But after that one must have the
five psychological virtues, five
psychological perfections, and we
say that these perfections are: |
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- Sincerity
or Transparency
- Faith
or Trust
(Trust in the Divine,
naturally)
- Devotion
or Gratitude
- Courage
or Aspiration
- Endurance
or Perseverance
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____One form
of endurance is faithfulness,
faithfulness to one's resolution
- being faithful. One has taken a
resolution, one is faithful to
one's resolution. This is
endurance. |
____There you are. |
____If one prsists,
there comes a time when one is
victorious. |
____Victory is to the
persistent. |
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THE MOTHER |
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