Latest / Sri Aurobindo Studies / The Complex Nature of Our Being Impacts Our Ability to Change and Transform Our Lives
Transcript
- 0:01Those who identify with their mental being tend to believe
- 0:04that if they think in a certain way that they have succeeded in
- 0:08embodying that. They will take the thought for
- 0:11the accomplishment without necessarily recognizing that
- 0:15their physical actions, their vital energies, and even aspects
- 0:19of their thought mind continue with things their minds have
- 0:22rejected. This occurs because people tend
- 0:26not to recognize that they are actually not a uniform being
- 0:29with one cohesive and coherent line of development, but rather
- 0:35that they are an amalgam of a number of different beings fused
- 0:39together into what we call ourselves, our personality, our
- 0:43being. It becomes even more interesting
- 0:47when we begin to recognize that not everything that we respond
- 0:51to when a signal reaches our brain is even truly our human
- 0:56constitution. Scientists nowadays advise us
- 1:00that in our intestines we have a thriving colony of intestinal
- 1:04flora microorganisms, and that they are very much responsible
- 1:09for a good portion of our digestive action.
- 1:13Now they have discovered that this bacterial colony sends
- 1:17signals to the brain when it wants food, and that at least
- 1:21part of our experience of hunger is due to the cravings of our
- 1:25symbiotic companions in our digestive system.
- 1:30Whose hunger is it if it is the bacteria calling for food and
- 1:34signaling our brain to get something to eat?
- 1:39We also receive impulses from forces outside our bodies.
- 1:43We do not observe these forces entering and stirring up
- 1:46vibrations within us, so we tend to identify with those
- 1:50vibrations and treat them as our own.
- 1:54With close observation, we can begin to distinguish the
- 1:57movement of these universal forces and their impact on our
- 2:02body, life, mind complex when we finally awaken to the
- 2:07realization that holding a particular thought is only one
- 2:10step in the process and that we need to carry out that thought
- 2:15such that it harmonizes thought, word and deed in a coherent way.
- 2:20Until that happens, all of these elements, whether they are
- 2:25residents within our being, whether they are part of our
- 2:28vital or physical being, with their habits, instincts and
- 2:31trained responses, or whether they are external forces which
- 2:36we allow to enter and manifest within us, will drive our
- 2:40actions regardless of our mental ideas and aspirations, the
- 2:47mother writes. Quote.
- 2:49Evidently there is one difficulty in your conscious
- 2:53being. Something does not want.
- 2:55The difficulty wishes sincerely to overcome it.
- 2:59But there are numberless movements in other parts of your
- 3:02consciousness of which you are not conscious.
- 3:05You say I want to be cured of that.
- 3:09Unfortunately it is not sufficient to say I want.
- 3:14There are other parts of the consciousness which hide
- 3:17themselves so that you may not be busy with them, and when your
- 3:21attention is turned away, these parts try to assert themselves.
- 3:26That is why I say, and shall always repeat, be perfectly
- 3:30sincere. Do not try to deceive yourself.
- 3:34Do not say I have done all that I could.
- 3:39If you do not succeed, it means that you do not do all that you
- 3:43can. For if you truly do all that you
- 3:47can, you will surely succeed. If you have any defect which you
- 3:52want to get rid of, and which still persists, and you say I
- 3:57have done all that I could, you may be sure that you have not
- 4:02done all that you should have. If you had, you would have
- 4:07triumphed. For the difficulties that come
- 4:10to you are exactly in proportion to your strength.
- 4:13Nothing can happen to you which does not belong to your
- 4:16consciousness. All that belongs to your
- 4:19consciousness you are able to master.
- 4:22Even the things and suggestions that come from outside can touch
- 4:26you only in proportion to the consent of your consciousness,
- 4:31and you are made to be the master of your consciousness.
- 4:35If you say I have done all that I could, and in spite of
- 4:39everything the thing continues, so I give up, you may be already
- 4:44sure that you have not done what you could.
- 4:47When an error persists in spite of everything, it means that
- 4:51something hidden in your being springs up suddenly like a
- 4:54jack-in-the-box, and takes the helm of your life.
- 4:59Hence there is only one thing to do.
- 5:02It is to go hunting for all the little dark corners which lie
- 5:06hidden in you. And if you put just a tiny spark
- 5:10of goodwill on this darkness, it will yield, will vanish, and
- 5:16what appeared to you impossible will become not only possible,
- 5:21practicable, but it will have been done.
- 5:25You can in this way, in one minute get rid of a difficulty
- 5:28which would have harassed you for years.
- 5:31I absolutely assure you of it. That depends only on one thing,
- 5:37that you truly, sincerely want to get rid of it.
- 5:43And it is the same for everything from physical
- 5:45illnesses up to the highest mental difficulties.
- 5:49One part of the consciousness says, I don't want it, but
- 5:53behind there hides a heap of things which say nothing, do not
- 5:57show themselves, and which just want that things continue as
- 6:01they are. Generally out of ignorance, they
- 6:05do not believe that it is necessary to be cured.
- 6:08They believe that everything is for the best in the best of
- 6:12worlds. End Quote reference.
- 6:16Shrioro Bindu and the Mother looking from within.
- 6:19Chapter 4, Ordeals and Difficulties, pages 88 to 89.