Summary: Explains that a deep watching of oneself and a clear observation of one’s motives is indispensable for sadhana; emphasises on becoming conscious of one’s personality, nature and the different layers of the consciousness. Teaches that we can observe and alter our behaviour patterns. Further elaborates on the fact that the quietness of mind and absence of thought is not understood by modern education.

(F. reading a passage): ‘To become conscious of the various movements in oneself and be aware of what one does and why one does it is the indispensable starting point.’ – The Mother, Sri Aurobindo Ashram

This is the basis of sadhana. That is what we do here and that is why I keep repeating it again and again. It is a regular feature of our sadhana to keep watching and to grow in understanding as you watch your thoughts, pleasant and unpleasant. It is quite monotonous to begin with but it needs to be done. It is the foundation on which you will build your Real Life. Then you become more conscious. The more you watch, the more the observing skills are developed and even your perception of things becomes sharper and deeper. You develop insight into things; otherwise it is a very superficial existence, a very superficial perception of things.

This is what is meant by becoming conscious. Now you are really mostly mechanical and asleep to much about yourself, that is why it needs to be done again and again. Finally that practice brings results and you can see it. Then there is a certain steadiness that comes in you and you develop the capacity to watch everything and anything, whether it be pleasant or unpleasant. Otherwise usually with the pleasant you get attached, with the unpleasant you are distracted and not only that, you run away from it. (Laughing) Yet a lot of times the unpleasant is good for you while the pleasant is not necessarily so. This is a fact of life which you start to understand. Usually we are attached to that which is pleasurable, but it is not always true that that which is good for you is pleasurable, or that which is pleasurable is good. A lot of times it is the unpleasant that is good for you, just like the neem leaves. That is why, as an example, I am giving you neem leaves to eat in the morning, not only for your physical health but to develop this understanding. You eat the neem leaves, it is unpleasant, but it is very good for you. On the other hand there are pleasurable things like pepsi, coke or coffee which are very pleasant to taste but they can ruin your health.

We need to develop a discerning eye. That is why it is said to watch with discernment, to understand and therefore take responsibility and then through that kind of watching self-awareness will follow. There is a sense of inner awareness that develops. You start to become aware of the watcher, the witness, which is rarely experienced, and that witness is seen as separate from what is being watched. These are the progressions in sadhana and this is the foundation on which you build your meditation too. Until such time you cannot reach quietness and only then can you sit for long hours. Then even while moving around this self-awareness is with you and it is available to you because it is your being.

(To F.): Let’s read that line again because it is good to understand this, to digest this deeply. Then we will also appreciate what we do when we sit. It has to be done, and we should practice watching not only when we sit but at other times too: when we walk, when we are working and when talking to each other, etc. Otherwise one tends to lose oneself in what one is saying, in what one is doing – but there is always a witness present. And if you observe yourself you will see that you sometimes say something but you do not really mean it. That is to be observed and recognised and why you do what you do.

(F. reading): ‘To become conscious of the various movements in oneself…’

So to be aware of the motives.

For sadhana it is indispensable to know one’s motives, why one does something, why one does not do something. What is the motive behind your thoughts and actions? To watch and see this is important for there are different layers of consciousness that make up the entire being. The being is the core of existence surrounded by these layers of consciousness. In the Upanishads, they talk about these layers giving the example of the banana tree trunk. If you cut a banana tree trunk, if you slice it, you will see there are very fine layers forming rings. They are very, very fine and that is why they give this example. You people have probably never seen a banana tree in your life. We used to have some here in the Ashram before they got washed away. Now they have started to grow again. If you cut the trunk you will see. They are very fine – it is like layers and layers wrapped around each other, so the example is quite apt. Then there is the core like the core of our being. So the core of the being is surrounded by these layers of consciousness – mental consciousness with its content of thoughts, different thoughts; vital consciousness with its content of impulses, passions and reactions; emotional consciousness with its content of emotions; and the deeper layers with its devotions and the sublime and so on. Therefore when we act the nature of it depends on what we are feeling and what is the thought behind it. You act but your actions are not just physical, there may be a thought behind it, there may be a feeling behind it, there may be a reaction, a motive. Many things are there and it is important to see which motive we are coming from. To understand all this is to become more and more conscious of your expressions, conscious of what you are doing, how you are doing it and why and so on, making adjustments wherever required and these adjustments should be continuous.

C.: All this self-inquiry – sometimes it happens that an emotion just comes up and I try to understand if it is true or not and the emotion goes, it is not there anymore and I do not live it. Sometimes it seems like I am losing some spontaneity.

This happens initially because you are not behind it at the moment, you are right in it, involved and attached but you have to practice. Through the practice of meditation and your sadhana it becomes possible to watch your thoughts and your feelings and also see where they are coming from. It is not that the thought or feeling is gone permanently and you are not going to be living your life. They are all very much there, and many things besides that you do not even want to know. So do not worry, as you progress, the more you progress the more things will come up and at times rather you wish they did not!

You have the whole cosmic consciousness in you. You have the worst of humanity and the best of humanity in you. Otherwise how else would you be universal? At the individual level you may have developed yourself in a certain way and some things are not there in your personality while some things are. But when you reach into the universal consciousness, when you start to open yourself to it then you will see, you will meet the beautiful and you will meet the ugly, angels as well as gargoyles and demons, all sorts of things and beings. Then you have to be even more watchful. Then you will say, ‘Oh, I should not live this,’ because there are things in the subconscious, there are things at the lower levels of consciousness that can be revolting to your conscience and all that which is noble and higher in you, as well as obstacles to your sadhana. That is why the caution on watching some movies. There will be enough coming up anyway to watch! (Laughing) When you watch movies you just watch because you think it is outside you. You do the same with yourself, watching at all levels – it is like a movie anyway! When you watch something coming up, a reaction, a response may also come up, one of attraction, repulsion, repentance, resentment, anger, escape or whatever – you have to watch that also.

The thought of N. may come, she may have said something to you and then anger will come up, so you have to watch that – it is another matter that auntie upsets and only brings up anger in everybody. Of course yesterday you guys (referring to C. and N.) had a partnership with the hot water. It is amazing, people who do not like or are indifferent to each other can even conspire together and do business for the sake of common interest – it is amazing. (Laughing)

C.: I switched off the geyser and she switched it on.

But there was a partnership.

N.: But for everybody, not for me.

Yes, of course for everybody but you should speak in the meeting. You decide by yourself, and nobody knows. And of course C. was very appreciative of that. Inside if you watch there was this feeling: ‘It is a good thing’ – for you of course!

C.: I saw her going down to the bathroom and I was hoping it was to switch on…

Right, there you go. This is watching the motives, you see. Somebody else is doing it, so I do not have to take the blame, but the blame is there and you cannot escape me. That is the first thing I told P., these two people are involved. When you know yourself you will know everybody. And I told P. it is N. and C. who are involved in this.

When you have managed to study yourself you have studied everybody. That is why in the Upanishads the Ṛishis have said, “Know thyself and all things will be known.” Once you know yourself you can read the others. You can read people’s mind, feelings, it becomes so obvious, and you guys are like a mirror. (Laughing)

C. thought he could benefit on both sides, a kind of double slam: on one side he gets the hot water while somebody whom he is not very fond of takes the blame, for she switched it on and he switched it off so in case it is discovered he can say, “But I switched it off!” and becomes the good guy. He is clever. Actually N. is not so clever although she thinks she is very intelligent and clever – she is not, that is only her belief. We continue to let her believe that but we know the truth!

Read that again.

(F. reading): ‘To become conscious of the various movements in oneself and be aware of what one does and why one does it is the indispensable starting point.’

It is an indispensable starting point, you cannot do without it, you cannot get anywhere without it. Even those who may have been blessed and made an opening because of somebody’s presence and may experience a larger consciousness, they too would have to work this out, for this is the building block of sadhana.

Ramakrishna used to give a good example when he said, “Some flower first then the fruit comes, some have the fruit first and then the flowering,” as is the case with some plants in nature, and so in either case it needs to be done. So even if one has opened out for one reason or the other he will still need to do this.

(F. continues reading): ‘The child must be taught to observe, to note his reactions and impulses and their causes, to become a discerning witness to his desires, his movements of violence and passion, his instinct of possession and appropriation and domination, and the background of vanity which supports them, together with their counterparts of weakness, discouragement, depression and despair.’

Basically it is the entire psychology you have to observe, and understand all the internal processes that go with your living. This is to understand your inner life, the processes that motivate you to do something or not to do something and therefore find steps to reach deeper and higher levels. This is why you need to develop the discerning eye, to become more conscious of the various levels of consciousness, to live a more profound and true life, otherwise people tend to live a very superficial surface life or a very low life. In this way you live life more consciously with greater and higher motives because every time you think or act it becomes a behaviour pattern – that is how personalities are created. How do you alter personality? If you have certain habitual movements or behaviour patterns, the way to change them is to negate them, deny them, and the way to do this is to watch them and let them pass each time they appear, not fuelling them by acceding to them. When you are used to doing something from the past, over time it becomes a habit, a behaviour, there is a compulsion in it and it will compel you and continue to pull you into it again and again especially since you identify with it as yourself. Therefore it needs to be negated and then something else, if required, can take its place. It is a process of continuous working. This is transformation, transformation of individual nature.

Extreme cases of habitual behaviour like addictions to alcohol, harmful beverages, tobacco and drugs, etc. can be treated in this way. These kinds of addictions like many others come from the second centre, and that is why their grip is very strong. The second centre, the sexual centre, is the centre of very strong desires, therefore the attachments to these desires are also very strong and requires so much more effort and work to transform them. That is why it is very difficult to give up addictions. Moreover addictions are associated with your nervous being; you can see how alcoholics and drug addicts all start having the ‘trembling’. After they become addicted they cannot even write properly because of the nerves. That is where the excitement is and that is why the attachment is there. It belongs to that level of consciousness.

You start to understand all this when you start to observe yourself. Then you can live from other levels of consciousness, otherwise you tend to live only from the level of consciousness you are at, but there are so many levels to your consciousness and therefore to your existence. This work needs to be done in your meditation and sadhana so that you have room in yourself to open to other levels of consciousness – then you can live other levels also.

So please, can you read again? (F. repeats the passage)

It is the common feature of everyone’s psychology. It has to be seen, understood, and whatever is required to be done has to be done. And if you begin early, as children, the better it is. D. has a big advantage, he started early. That is why in India there were gurukulas so that you could start from childhood – the earlier the better. Otherwise what happens is that they develop unhealthy and unwholesome mindsets and behaviour patterns because of their environment or lack of it which become difficult to change in the future having become deeply entrenched in their personality. The stronger that behaviour pattern becomes, the more difficult it is to alter and change it. Even the way you think, your ways of thinking are behavioural. Each person has his pattern of thinking as per his education and environment of upbringing. That is what your individuality is: your perceptions, your perspectives, your tendencies, your individualised culture, and all this has been developed over many lifetimes. In India they call them saṃskâras, impressions created over time, which is what your individuality and your personality is. It can defeat the very purpose of your life preventing you to know yourself, preventing you to even take to this journey or be a help in finding it.

People think and see in one way because they are looking at life from what is provided to them by their education, upbringing and environment, a view which today is mostly from the point of the materialistic ‘non-soul’. They have no acceptance or place for the spiritual in things, no soul, and the kind of development of the present modern human society is the reason for such a predicament. In this human society these things are often considered unimportant, unnecessary and even laughable. Even the suggestion of such a thing as the existence of the soul is a ridiculous idea. To the modern supposedly rational society there is no soul, there is no Âtman, Being and Existence, the Spirit, Self beyond the body and mind because they cannot touch it, feel and see it physically through the microscope of their limited science. They are limited therefore. This is because of their education and upbringing. Education is the key – what kind of education you give to the children: a purely materialistic one or one in which there is the priority, openness and courage to inquire into the spiritual secrets of their existence and life. This education should already start at childhood.

It can happen from within as a natural evolutionary phenomenon and grace, so to speak, like it did with Siddhartha the Buddha and others like him. But for the majority it has to begin with education and sadhana practices as it is done with the temporal subjects. Of course this is the ultimate subject, this is the mother of all subjects. That is why in the Indian tradition it is called Mahâvidyâ, Great Knowledge, the others are called vidyâ, knowledge, but this is The Great Knowledge, the mother of all knowledge.

One day a man came to Aurobindo and in his presence this man’s mind became very quiet. This event is a good example of the influence and limitation of modern education. Modern education does not even conceive of such a thing, so the mind develops excluding it and is closed to it. It is very strange to such a mind. So he was not open to these things because of his education. The mental development because of such education excludes such phenomena and the reaction to it can be one of strangeness and fear. In modern, westernised education this has no place and when I say westernised it is because that is where this ‘thinking’ comes from.

Even Descartes said: “I think therefore I am,” so you have to have some thought. I can think therefore I am. The trees do not think but they still exist while according to this way of thinking they do not exist, they do not have a consciousness. It is a very funny idea of consciousness, only humans are conscious, only one who can say: ‘I think’ is conscious. Animals, trees, insects are not conscious and so have no consciousness! Then what are they? It is a very strange definition of consciousness. So: “I think therefore I am,” and you are taught that you should be able to think, that you should have as many thoughts as possible – the more thoughts, the more intelligent you are.

That is why even Krishnamurti was considered to be retarded when he was in school because his mind used to be totally quiet, blank, no thought, even as a child. He would look and watch for hours without reacting but for the teacher this was not good enough, rather it was a sign of mental retardation and regress. There must be some reaction, some response, the teacher thought, they could not intuit his condition leave alone see it as a very preferable one, being educated in modern ways. Usually the more you react, the more aggressive and expressive you are, as that is what modern society teaches you, the more intelligent you are considered. There is this understanding, this stereotyping of existence and so Krishnamurti was considered to be a retarded child by this understanding. (Laughing) Then he became a World Teacher! This is modern education.

So this fellow came to see Aurobindo and in his presence his mind became totally quiet, no thoughts whatsoever but instead of appreciating this wonderful gift he got really scared and ran away saying, “I am becoming an idiot here.” To which Aurobindo agreed, “Yes, he was really an idiot.” That is right; many of the considered so-called intelligent people going around in the world are actually idiots, a lot of them. That fellow never came back. He lost such a great opportunity. Why? Because his upbringing was poor, his education was incomplete; the lack of knowledge in his education regarding the nature of his existence denied him the truth about himself. Unless he is re-educated, he will forever be denied the ultimate legacy to know what he truly is, to know himself, to know the Reality. But you can carry on living in this world in that way, as an idiot, so it is fine!

We can read it once more and then can call it a day. (F. repeats the passage)

So you would have to watch very deeply, it is not just superficial watching. You have to go deep into yourself, get into your motives, into what is behind a thought, really seek and search. It is an inner search; you have to search for it. That is why it requires that kind of integrity, honesty, sincerity. Sincerity of purpose, I have always repeated this.

(F. reads): ‘This is the indispensable starting point…’

Indispensable starting point – this is only the starting point but if you start like this you will reach the end, which is no end, because there is no end to you, no end to your findings.

Arya Vihar

8 Sep 2008