Latest / Sri Aurobindo Studies / We Tend to Take Ourselves Too Seriously

Transcript

We Tend to Take Ourselves Too Seriously · Sri Aurobindo Studies

• 0:00
  Seriously, we get all wound up about things that have no real
• 0:05
  significance in the larger picture of life.
• 0:09
  Whether it is someone cutting in front of us in a queue or on the
• 0:12
  road, or whether someone says something about us which we do
• 0:16
  not like. We tend to get revved up and
• 0:20
  Stew on what happened in issues that have some relevance to our
• 0:25
  daily lives. We become even more fixated on
• 0:28
  what we desire to see happen and if we turn to politics, religion
• 0:35
  or economic theory, we are in many cases ready to kill to
• 0:40
  uphold our favoured viewpoint. Seriously, we get into a narrow,
• 0:46
  rigid, solemn state of mind when we are confronted with defending
• 0:51
  whatever beliefs we have incorporated into our minds,
• 0:55
  whether based in fact or not. It is a sign of some amount of
• 1:01
  maturity and inner growth for people to begin to recognize
• 1:05
  that there are differing views and ways of addressing issues
• 1:09
  and that our own viewpoints must be taken with a grain of salt,
• 1:15
  so to speak. When someone takes up the
• 1:18
  religious or the spiritual life, he begins to examine his each
• 1:22
  and every thought, emotion, feeling, and reaction.
• 1:27
  He judges them based on the rules and guidelines he is
• 1:30
  provided by whatever faith or specific practice he is
• 1:34
  following. Of course, he cannot control
• 1:38
  100% of all these things, and thus spots variances between his
• 1:43
  internal reaction and the rules he wants to adhere to these.
• 1:48
  In some cases, very small things become enormous issues, and with
• 1:54
  the tendency of taking oneself too seriously that infects
• 1:59
  humans generally, he begins to tell himself that he is a
• 2:03
  failure, that he has not cut out for the spiritual life, or that
• 2:09
  there is something wrong with the teaching he is following.
• 2:13
  It is for such instances that Triorobindo and the mother
• 2:17
  counsel the seeker to smile at the circumstances and just keep
• 2:22
  going on. A dose of cheerfulness combined
• 2:26
  with patience and perseverance is the general cure for such a
• 2:31
  state, the mother notes quote. The more you advance, the more
• 2:38
  vigilant must you become. And the most essential quality
• 2:43
  is perseverance, endurance, and a, what shall I call it, a kind
• 2:49
  of inner good humor which helps you not to get discouraged, not
• 2:54
  to become sad, and to face all difficulties with a smile.
• 3:00
  There's an English word which expresses this very well,
• 3:04
  cheerfulness. If you can keep this within you,
• 3:08
  you fight much better, resist much better in the light these
• 3:13
  bad influences which try to hinder you from progressing.
• 3:18
  A smile acts upon difficulties as the sun upon clouds.
• 3:22
  It disperses them. Someone who knows how to smile
• 3:27
  in all circumstances is very close to true equality of soul.
• 3:34
  Generally speaking, man is an animal who takes himself
• 3:38
  terribly seriously to know how to smile at oneself in all
• 3:43
  circumstances, to smile at one's sorrows and disillusions,
• 3:48
  ambitions and sufferings, indignation and revolt.
• 3:53
  What a powerful weapon with which to overcome oneself.
• 3:58
  Learn to smile always and in all circumstances, to smile at your
• 4:03
  sorrows as well as your joys, your sufferings as well as your
• 4:07
  hopes. For in a smile there is a
• 4:11
  sovereign power of self mastery. End Quote.
• 4:17
  Reference Sri Aurobindo and the Mother Looking from Within,
• 4:21
  Chapter 5. Attitudes on the Path, pages 142
• 4:26
  to 143.