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The Best Way to Help Others and the World · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  When we want to help alleviate the suffering in the world, or
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  help solve the general concerns or the more specific individual
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  needs and wants, we come up with an endless number of ideas about
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  how to help. From an outward perspective,
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  these may be highly valuable and useful activities.
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  Spiritual and religious organizations in particular tend
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  to focus on feeding the hungry, healing and caring for the sick,
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  providing shelter. These things help to mitigate
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  some of the worst dislocations and imbalances in the world and
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  how society functions. Others may be moved to work on
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  the larger issues of climate change, pollution, fresh water
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  supply, food to sustain large numbers of people residing in
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  the world, as well as looking for ways to adapt the work and
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  living environments to be more supportive of people and their
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  needs and interests. Still others may be moved to
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  tackle technological questions to help solve the issues we are
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  all facing. Some may work on how to bring
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  peace and understanding in the world, and others may work on
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  bringing beauty and harmony through art, music, dance,
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  writing, and entertainment media of various sorts.
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  People obviously need to follow their passion and vision and
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  carry out these and other worthwhile projects in the
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  interests of supporting all of humanity.
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  Yet none of these things actually solves the underlying
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  issues. Rather, they act as a sort of
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  bandage over the wounds that we create through our interactions
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  with each other and our environment.
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  The real solutions only come when we move beyond simply
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  ameliorating harm already being caused to resolving the root
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  causes. It is at this level that the
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  mother counsels that the true help is a change of
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  consciousness. This is not carried out through
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  dogmatic expressions, argument, mental ideas, or any form of
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  outward control, but through inward growth and change that
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  works on the energetic levels of being.
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  Many seekers have experienced the atmosphere of someone who is
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  immersed in the spiritual consciousness.
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  Legends across many cultures speak of souls who touched
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  others simply by their presence, the energetic vibration they
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  created in their surroundings. On an individual level, we can
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  appreciate the power of the spiritual consciousness.
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  The Mother indicates that for the spiritual seeker, the
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  development of the spiritual consciousness and the natural
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  effect it has on others is actually the best approach to
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  aiding human development, as it creates a contagion effect and
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  helps to transform life. At the level of root causes, we
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  have heard about the 100th monkey phenomenon.
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  We have had the concept of the nuosphere explained as a reason
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  why the same invention tends to pop up in widely diverse places
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  around the same time. We are clear that vibrations of
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  consciousness are universal, traverse the entire planet, and
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  can impact people from a distance, particularly as they
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  move away from purely physical and vital vibrations to the more
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  subtle, powerful levels of mind and eventually the spiritual
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  consciousness. Thus, it is clearly reasonable
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  to accept that as individuals begin to vibrate under the force
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  of the spiritual consciousness, they are helping to raise up the
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  vibratory level and energetic responsiveness of all of
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  humanity. It is this type of change,
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  similar to what the mental force did to the physical and vital
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  planes, that we can expect from the full advent and
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  manifestation of the spiritual consciousness as we mature and
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  begin to experience that level with more completeness and
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  intensity. The Mother notes quote.
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  It is these people the mental being does not understand.
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  So long as one is in the mental consciousness, even the Highest,
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  and sees the spiritual life from outside, one judges with one's
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  mental faculties, with the habit of seeking, erring, correcting,
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  progressing and seeking once again.
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  And one thinks that those who are in the spiritual life suffer
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  from the same incapacity. But that is a very gross
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  mistake. When the reversal of the being
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  has taken place, all that is finished.
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  One no longer seeks, one sees, one no longer deduces, one
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  knows, one no longer gropes, one walks straight to the goal.
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  And when one has gone farther, only a little farther, one
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  knows, feels, lives. The supreme Truth.
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  That the Supreme Truth alone acts, the Supreme Lord alone
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  wills, knows, and does through human being.
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  How could there be any possibility of error there?
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  What He does, He does because He wills to do it for our mistaken
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  vision. These are perhaps
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  incomprehensible actions, but they have a meaning and a name,
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  and lead where they ought to lead.
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  Silence. If one sincerely wants to help
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  others and the world, the best thing one can do is to be
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  oneself, what one wants others to be.
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  Not only as an example, but because one becomes a center of
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  radiating power which, by the very fact that it exists,
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  compels the rest of the world to transform itself.
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  End Quote. Reference Sri Aurobindo and the
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  Mother Powers Within, Chapter 22, Spirit, pages 168 to 169.