This slideshow is dedicated at the lotus feet of

The Mother and Sri Aurobindo

The most common
malady humanity
suffers from

By

The Mother
 PART–1
Basics of Boredom
 Background
 Introduction
 Boredom in Classroom
 Right Attitude in Class
 Controlling the vital which gets bored
 The reason why we find a person boring
 Most common symptom of a boring person
 Attitude we must have to avoid boredom
 Role of psychic being in Boredom
 1. The Background
 THERE are, in the history of the earth, moments
of transition when things that have existed for
thousands of years must give way to those that
are about to manifest.
 A special concentration of the world
consciousness, one might almost say, an
intensification of its effort, occurs at such times,
varying according to the kind of progress to be
made, the quality of the transformation to be
realised.
 We are at precisely such a turning-point in the
world’s history.
… Continued
 Just as Nature has already created upon
earth a mental being, man, so too there is
now a concentrated activity in this mentality
to bring forth a supramental consciousness
and individuality.
 Certain beings who, might say, are in the
secret of the gods, are aware of the
importance of this moment in the life of the
world, and they have taken birth on earth to
play their part in whatever way they can.
… Continued
A great luminous consciousness
broods over the earth, creating a
kind of stir in its atmosphere.
 All who are open receive a ripple
from this eddy, a ray of this light
and seek to give form to it, each
according to his capacity.
… Continued
 We have here the unique privilege of being at
the very centre of this radiating light, at the
fount of this force of transformation.
 Sri Aurobindo, incarnating the supramental
consciousness in a human body, has not
only revealed to us the nature of the path to
follow and the way to follow it in order to
reach the goal, but has also by his own
personal realisation given us the example; he
has provided us, so to say, with the proof
that the thing can be done and that the time
has come to do it.
… Continued
Consequently,
we are not here to repeat
what others have done,
but to prepare ourselves
for the blossoming of a new
consciousness and a new life.
… Continued
 That is why I address myself to you, the
students, that is, to all who wish to
learn, to learn always more and always
better, so that one day you may be
capable of opening yourselves to the
new force and of giving it the
possibility of manifesting on the
physical plane.
 For that is our programme and we must
not forget it.
… Continued
To understand the true reason
why you are here,
you must remember that
we want to become instruments
that are as perfect as possible,
instruments that express the
divine will in the world.
… Continued
And if the instruments are
to be perfect, they must be
cultivated, educated, trained.
They must not be left
like fallow land
or a formless piece of stone.
… Continued
 A diamond reveals all its beauty only when
it is artistically cut. It is the same for you.
 If you want your physical being to be a
perfect instrument for the manifestation of
the supramental consciousness, you must
cultivate it, sharpen it, refine it, give it what
it lacks, perfect what it already possesses.
 That is why you go to school, my children,
whether you are big or small, for one can
learn at any age—and so you must go to
your classes.
 2. Introduction
The most common malady
humanity suffers from is
boredom.
Most of the stupidities men
commit come from an
attempt to escape boredom.
… Continued
The fact is that one of the two
principal occupations of man is
to try to forget what is painful to him, and
the other is to try to seek amusement
In order to escape boredom.
These are the two principal occupations
of humanity, that is, humanity spends
half of its time in doing nothing true.
… Continued
 And when people get bored (some do not
absolutely need to keep busy, or they have
the misfortune of being rich) they do silly
things!
 The origin of all excesses, all human
stupidity is “ennui”, what is called dullness,
the state in which you are like a damp rag:
you do not react to anything and are
compelled to whip yourself (figuratively) just
to make yourself move and get along.
… Continued
In Nature’s economy,
moments of respite are
given to men
to rediscover themselves
but they do not know
how to make use of them.
… Continued
 Lifeis monotonous. Most often it
is not fun. It is far from being
beautiful.
 Butif you take it as a field for
progress, then everything
changes, everything becomes
interesting and there is no
longer any room for boredom.
… Continued
 Next time your teacher seems boring to
you, instead of wasting your time doing
nothing, try to understand why he
bores you.
 Then if you have a capacity of
observation and if you make an effort
to understand, you will soon see that a
kind of miracle has occurred and that
you are no longer feeling bored at all.
… Continued
 This remedy is good in almost every
case. Sometimes, in certain
circumstances, everything seems dull,
boring, stupid; this means that you are
as boring as the circumstances and it
clearly shows that you are not in a state
of progress.
 It is simply a passing wave of boredom,
and nothing is more contrary to the
purpose of existence.
… Continued
 At such a moment you might make an
effort and ask yourself, “This boredom
shows that I have something to learn,
some progress to make in myself,
some inertia to conquer, some
weakness to overcome.”
 Boredom is a dullness of the
consciousness; and if you seek the
cure within yourself, you will see that it
immediately dissolves.
… Continued
 Most people, when they feel bored, instead of
making an effort to rise one step higher in
their consciousness, come down one step
lower; they come down even lower than they
were before and do stupid things, they make
themselves vulgar in the hope of amusing
themselves. That is why men intoxicate
themselves, spoil their health, deaden their
brains.
 If they had risen instead of falling, they
would have made use of this opportunity to
progress.
… Continued
 In fact, the same thing holds true in
all circumstances, when life gives
you a severe blow, one of those
blows which men call a misfortune.
 The first thing they try to do is to
forget, as if they did not forget only
too soon! And in order to forget,
they do all kinds of things.
… Continued
 When something is very painful, they
try to distract themselves—what they
call distracting themselves, that is,
doing stupid things, lowering their
consciousness instead of raising it.
 If something extremely painful happens
to you, never try to deaden yourself;
you must not forget, you must not sink
into unconsciousness.
… Continued
 Go right to the heart of the pain
and there you will find the light, the
truth, the strength and the joy
which are hidden behind this pain.
 But for that you must be firm and
refuse to let yourself slide.
 In this way every event in life, great
or small, can be an opportunity for
progress.
… Continued
 Even the most insignificant details can lead to
revelations if you know how to profit from them.
 Whenever you are engaged in something which
does not demand the whole of your attention,
use it as an opportunity to develop your faculty
of observation and you will see that you will
make interesting discoveries.
 To help you to understand what I mean, I shall
give you two examples. They are two brief
moments in life which are insignificant in
themselves, but still leave a deep and lasting
impression.
… Continued
 The first example takes place in Paris. You have
to go out into this immense city; here all is
noise, apparent confusion, bewildering activity.
Suddenly you see a woman walking in front of
you; she is like most other women, her dress
has nothing striking about it, but her gait is
remarkable, supple, rhythmic, elegant,
harmonious. It catches your attention and you
are full of wonder. Then, this body moving along
so gracefully reminds you of all the splendours
of ancient Greece and the unparalleled lesson in
beauty which its culture gave to the whole world,
and you live an unforgettable moment—all that
just because of a woman who knows how to
walk!
… Continued
 The second example is from the other end of the world,
from Japan. You have just arrived in this beautiful
country for a long stay and very soon you find out that
unless you have at least a minimum knowledge of the
language, it will be very difficult for you to get along.
So you begin to study Japanese and in order to
become familiar with the language you do not miss a
single opportunity to hear people talking, you listen to
them carefully, you try to understand what they are
saying; and then, beside you, in a tram where you have
just taken your seat, there is a small child of four or
five years with his mother. The child begins to talk in a
clear and pure voice and listening to him you have the
remarkable experience that he knows spontaneously
what you have to learn with so much effort, and that as
far as Japanese is concerned he could be your teacher
in spite of his youth.
… Continued
In this way
life becomes full of wonder
and gives you a lesson
at each step.
Looked at from this angle,
it is truly worth living.
3. BOREDOM IN CLASSROOM
3.1 Why a class taken by a teacher is
sometimes interesting and sometimes boring
 There are two things to be considered:
consciousness and the instruments through
which consciousness manifests.
 Let us take the instruments: there is the
mental being which produces thoughts, the
emotional being which produces feeling, the
vital being which produces the power of
action and the physical being that acts.
… Continued
 The man of genius may use anything at all
and make something beautiful because he
has genius; but give this genius a perfect
instrument and he will make something
wonderful. Take a great musician; well, even
with a wretched piano and missing notes, he
will produce something beautiful; but give
him a good piano, well-tuned, and he will do
something still more beautiful. The
consciousness is the same in either case but
for expression it needs a good instrument—a
body with mental, vital, psychic and physical
capacities.
… Continued
 If physically you are badly built, badly set
up, it will be difficult for you, even with
good training, to do gymnastics as well as
one with a beautiful well-built body. It is
the same with the mind—one who has a
well-organised mind, complex, complete,
refined, will express himself much better
than one who has a rather mediocre or
badly organised mind. First of all, you
must educate your consciousness,
become conscious of yourself, organise
your consciousness according to your
ideal, but at the same time do not neglect
the instruments which are in your body.
… Continued
 Take an example. You are in your body
with your deepest ideal but you find
yourself before a school class and you
have to teach something to the students.
Well, this light is up there, this light of
consciousness, but when you have to
explain to your class the science you
have to teach, is it more convenient to
have a fund of knowledge or will the
inspiration be such that you will not need
this fund of knowledge? What is your
personal experience?...
… Continued
 You find, don’t you, that there are days
when everything goes well—you are
eloquent, your students listen to you and
understand you easily.
 But there are other days when what you
have to teach does not come, they do not
listen to you—that is, you are bored and are
boring.
 This means that in the former case your
consciousness is awake and concentrated
upon what you are doing, while in the
second it is more or less asleep—you are
left to your most external means.
… Continued
 But in this case, if you have a fund of
knowledge you can tell your students
something; if you have a mind trained,
prepared, a good instrument responding well
when you want to make use of it, and if you
have also gathered all necessary notes and
notions all will go very well.
 But if you have nothing in your head and,
besides, you are not in contact with your
higher consciousness, then you have no
other recourse than to take a book and read
out your lesson—you will be obliged to make
use of someone else’s mind.
… Continued
 Take games. There too you find
days when everything goes
well; you have done nothing
special previously, but even so
you succeed in everything; but
if you have practised well
beforehand, the result is still
more magnificent.
… Continued
 But one cannot replace the other. The one which
is superior is more important, granted, but you
must also have nerves which respond quickly,
spontaneous movements; you must know all the
secrets of the game to be able to play perfectly.
 You must have both the things. What is higher is
the consciousness which enables you to make
the right movement at the right moment but it is
not exclusive.
 When you seek perfection, you must not neglect
the one under the pretext that you have the
other.
 3.2 Avoiding Boredom in the Class
by Leading the Students
 The teacher can choose either a corner
or a place or a little room—I don’t know
what, it’s all the same to me—any place
where the students can come and ask
for his guidance, either in the room or
in a room nearby.
 He can busy himself in an interesting
way, preparing the answers he will give
to his students, not thinking about
something else.
… Continued
 That can be done at once, eh?
 Now, it is not necessary that they
should all call themselves by the
same name. That is where...There
is, in man, a kind of spirit of—ah!
we can give it a polite name—well,
a sheep-like spirit.... All the time
they need... they need someone to
lead them.
… Continued
 The student should come to school not like
someone going to his daily grind because he
cannot avoid it, but because it would be possible
for him to do something interesting.
 The teacher should not be in school, come to
school with the idea that for half an hour or
three-quarters of an hour he is going to recite
something which he has more or less well
prepared and which is boring even for him, and
that therefore he cannot amuse the students, but
instead to try to come into contact mentally—
and if possible more deeply—with a number of
little developing individualities who, we hope,
have some curiosity about things, and in order
to be able to satisfy this curiosity.
… Continued
 So he himself must be aware, very
modestly, that he does not know
enough and that he has a lot to learn;
but not to learn from books—by trying
to understand life.
 So there you have another framework
for your work. I don’t know...You
distribute things to the students....
 3.3 The Teacher is the first one
to feel Bored
 (To B) But then your afternoon class...
How are you going to go about it?
Like that? The children sitting on the
bench and the teacher giving a
lecture? My God, how boring it is!
 The teacher feels bored, he is the first
one to feel bored, so naturally he
passes on his boredom to his
students.
… Continued
 There could be an organisation like this:
you take a subject and the teacher asks
questions here and there, to this one,
“There, what do you have to say about
this? What do you know about this?” And
so on, like that.
 And then, naturally, if the others are
listening, they can benefit. A kind of
organisation like that, with some life in
it—not a boring lecture where everyone
falls asleep after five minutes.
… Continued
 You ask questions, or else, if there is a
blackboard, on the blackboard you write a
large question in large letters so that
everyone can read, and you say, “Who
can answer?”
 You do that and then you ask questions,
here and there, you question those who
have asked.... And so when one of them
answers, then you say, “Is there anyone
who can add to what this one has said?”
 The teacher must have some life in him.
… Continued
 I understand that—one class for each language,
separate groups—that is understood, in the
afternoon. But for heaven’s sake, none of that...
sitting on a bench and, “When is it going to
end?” They look at their watches....
 Not one teacher out of a hundred is amusing
enough to amuse everyone.
 And to begin with, he is the first one to feel
bored. For him, it is... not here, but outside, it is
his livelihood, so... You should have twenty,
thirty students, forty students there....
 3.4 THE PRIMARY UNDERSTANDING

Children have
everything to learn.
This should be their main
preoccupation in order to
prepare themselves
for a useful and productive
life.
… Continued
 At the same time, as they grow up,
they must discover in themselves
the thing or things which interest
them most and which they are
capable of doing well.
 There are latent faculties to be
developed. There are also faculties
to be discovered.
… Continued
Children must be taught to like
to overcome difficulties,
and also that this gives a special
value to life;
when one knows how to do it,
it destroys boredom for ever
and gives an altogether
new interest to life.
… Continued
We are on earth
to progress
and
we have everything
to learn.
 4. RIGHT ATTITUDE
IN THE CLASS
 Just: “Ah! We are going to have some fun.
Let’s see what we can do to have some fun.
What game can we play?” And so,
naturally, in this way you find, you invent.
And he [the teacher] remains living himself,
because he has to find something.
 And the students are there, like that....
When they have a little selfrespect, they
want to be able to say something, and that
creates a living atmosphere. Wouldn’t that
be more amusing for you than doing...
learning at home?
… Continued
 If you are honest, you work in the evening for the
class you are going to take the next day, you learn
very carefully, you take notes and you write, and...
You can prepare a subject, prepare, see, so that you
are ready to answer every question. It is not always
easy.
 But to prepare your subject well, that is good; to try
to receive a little light and inspiration during the
night, and then, on the next day to find a living way
of living what you know.
 And not the students and the teacher... no! A group
of living beings, some of whom know a little more
than the others, that’s all.
… Continued
 If you said to yourself, my children, “We want to
be as perfect instruments as possible to express
the divine Will in the world”, then for this
instrument to be perfect, it must be cultivated,
educated, trained. It must not be left like a
shapeless piece of stone. When you want to build
with a stone you chisel it; when you want to make
a formless block into a beautiful diamond, you
chisel it.
 Well, it is the same thing. When with your brain
and body you want to make a beautiful instrument
for the Divine, you must cultivate it, sharpen it,
refine it, complete what is missing, perfect what is
there.
… Continued
 For example, you go to your class.
If you are not in a very good mood,
you say, “Oh, how tedious it is
going to be!” Supposing it is a
professor who does not know how
to entertain you (one can be a very
good professor without knowing
how to amuse you, for it is not
always easy...
… Continued
 There are days when one does not feel
like being entertaining. There are days,
for him as for you, when one would like
to be elsewhere than in school. But
still, you go to your class.
 You go because you must, for if you
obey all your fancies you will never
have any control over yourselves; your
fancies will control you. So, you go to
your class.
… Continued
 But then, on your way there, instead
of saying, “Oh, how bored I am
going to be, oh, dear! it is not going
to be at all interesting”, etc., if you
say, “There is not a minute in life,
there is not a circumstance in one’s
existence that cannot bring an
opportunity for progress; what then
is the progress that I am going to
make today?...
… Continued
 I offer all my little person to the Divine. I want it to
be a good instrument for Him to express Himself,
that I may be ready one day for the transformation.
 What am I going to do today? I am going to that
class, it is a subject that does not enthuse me; but
if I do not know how to take interest in this work, it
is perhaps because there is something lacking in
me, because somewhere in my brain some cells
are missing.
 But then, if that is so, I am going to try to find out;
I am going to listen properly, concentrate properly
and above all drive away from my mind this kind of
frivolity, this outward levity which makes me feel
bored when there’s something I do not grasp. Why
do I get bored?... Because I do not progress.”
… Continued
 When one does not progress, one gets bored
—old and young, everybody—because we
are here upon earth to progress.
 If we do not progress every minute, well, it is
indeed boring, monotonous; it is not always
pleasant, it is far from being fine.
 “So I am going to find out today what
progress I can make in this class; there is
something I do not know and which I can
learn.”
… Continued
 If you want to learn, you can learn at every
moment. As for me I have learnt even by
listening to little children’s chatter.
 Every moment something may happen;
someone may say a word to you, even an
idiot may say a word that opens you to
something enabling you to make some
progress.
 And then, if you knew, how life becomes
interesting! You can no longer get bored, that
is gone, everything is interesting, everything
is wonderful—because every minute you can
learn, at each step make progress.
… Continued
 For example, when you are in the street, instead of
being simply there and not knowing what you are
doing, if you look around, if you observe... I
remember having been thus obliged to be in the
street on a shopping errand or going to see
someone or to purchase something, that’s not
important; indeed, it is not always pleasant to be
in the street, but if you begin to observe and to see
how this person walks, how that one moves, how
this light plays upon that object, how this little bit
of a tree there suddenly makes the landscape
pretty, how hundreds of things shine... then every
minute you can learn something.
… Continued
 Not only can you learn, but I remember to have
once had—I was just walking in the street—to
have had a kind of illumination, because there
was a woman walking in front of me and truly
she knew how to walk. How lovely it was! Her
movement was magnificent! I saw that and
suddenly I saw the whole origin of Greek culture,
how all these forms descend towards the world
to express Beauty—simply because here was a
woman who knew how to walk! You understand,
this is how all things become interesting.
… Continued
 And so, instead of going to the class and doing
stupid things there (I hope none of you does that, I
am sure all who come here to my class will never
go and do stupid things at school, that it is
exceptions that prove the rule; however, I know
that unfortunately too many go there and do all the
idiotic things one might invent), so, instead of that,
if you could go to the class in order to make
progress, every day a new little progress—even if
it be the understanding why your professor bores
you—it would be wonderful, for all of a sudden he
will no longer be boring to you, all of a sudden you
will discover that he is very interesting! It is like
that.
… Continued
 If you look at life in this way, life
becomes something wonderful. That is
the only way of making it interesting,
because life upon earth is made to be a
field for progress and if we progress to
the maximum we draw the maximum
benefit from our life upon earth. And
then one feels happy. When one does
the best one can, one is happy.
… Continued
 When one is bored, Mother, does that mean
one does not progress?
 At that time, yes, certainly without a doubt;
not only does one not progress, but one
misses an opportunity for progressing. There
was a concurrence of circumstances which
seemed to you dull, boring, stupid and you
were in their midst; well, if you get bored, it
means that you yourself are as boring as the
circumstances! And that is a clear proof that
you are simply not in a state of progress.
… Continued
 There is nothing more contrary to the very reason
of existence than this passing wave of boredom. If
you make a little effort within yourself at that time,
if you tell yourself: “Wait a bit, what is it that I
should learn? What does all that bring to me so that
I may learn something? What progress should I
make in overcoming myself? What is the weakness
that I must overcome? What is the inertia that I
must conquer?”
 If you say that to yourself, you will see the next
minute you are no longer bored. You will
immediately get interested and you will make
progress! This is a commonplace of
consciousness.
… Continued
 And then, you know, most people when they get
bored, instead of trying to rise a step higher,
descend a step lower, they become still worse
than what they were, and they do all the stupid
things that others do, go in for all the vulgarities,
all the meannesses, everything, in order to amuse
themselves.
 They get intoxicated, take poison, ruin their health,
ruin their brain, they utter crudities. They do all
that because they are bored.
 Well, if instead of going down, one had risen up,
one would have profited by the circumstances.
Instead of profiting, one falls a little lower yet than
where one was.
… Continued
 When people get a big blow in their life,
some misfortune (what men call
“misfortune”, there are people who do have
misfortunes), the first thing they try to do is
to forget it—as though one did not forget
quickly enough! And to forget, they do
anything whatsoever.
 When there is something painful, they want
to distract themselves—what they call
distraction, that is, doing stupid things, that
is to say, going down in their consciousness,
going down a little instead of rising up....
… Continued
 Has something extremely painful happened
to you, something very grievous?
 Do not become stupefied, do not seek
forgetfulness, do not go down into the
inconscience; you must go to the end and
find the light that is behind, the truth, the
force and the joy; and for that you must be
strong and refuse to slide down. But that
we shall see a little later, my children, when
you will be a little older.
… Continued
 If this sort of thing happens in the class, if one
feels uneasy...
 That happens to you in the class? It means
you do not listen to your teacher, otherwise it
would not happen. If you were very attentive
in your class and paid attention to your
lesson, that could not happen to you. When
you came out of it, then you would feel that,
but not in the class.
 This means that you were dreaming or living
within you or following your imagination, but
you were not listening to your lessons....
… Continued
 But it is this that’s wonderful, my children:
when you are learning something, when you
are studying, when you are concentrated on
your lesson, these things never happen to
you. They may happen before, they may
happen afterwards; but they won’t happen at
that time.
 For if you are quite concentrated, all your
energies are concentrated on your study and
there is nothing unpleasant there. You
understand what you learn and you are
interested in what you learn.
… Continued
 Sometimes, one tries to concentrate but
one can’t.
 If truly you can’t, then you have only to
spend your time in seeking within
yourself for the reason why it is so! Then
if the teacher asks you a question, you
have to tell him: “I am sorry, I was not
listening.” You don’t like to learn?
 Yes
 Then how can this happen?
… Continued
 But in some classes, I do not understand.
 Then in some classes, you do not like
to learn!
 You can say generally, “Yes, yes, I like
to learn!” but if one really likes to learn,
there isn’t a class in which one could
not learn.
 Surely, whatever the class, there is
always something one does not know,
one can always learn.
… Continued
 You are not a living encyclopaedia! Even if you go
over the same book again (this happens, I believe,
in some classes), and you may say: “Oh! I have
already gone through this book, this is boring”,
but that’s simply because you do not want to
learn: because certainly if you repeat the same
book, it means that you have not learnt it properly
the first time and you must take particular care to
learn what you have not learnt.
 Even a book of grammar! I do not say that books
of grammar are very exciting, but even a grammar-
book becomes interesting if you set out to learn
it—even the most abstract rules of grammar.
… Continued
 You cannot imagine how amusing it is when
you truly want to learn, when you want to
understand why it is so; instead of just
committing to memory, learning by heart, if
you want to understand: what are these words
put there? For what idea, what real knowledge
are they put there? What do they represent?...
 Any rule whatsoever is simply a human mental
formula of something that exists in itself. Take
any rule at all, it shows simply that a few heads
have made an effort to formulate in the way
most clear to them, most condensed,
something which exists in itself.
… Continued
 So if one goes behind the words and
begins searching for this something—
the thing existing in itself, which is
there, behind the words—how
interesting it becomes! It is throbbing,
thrilling! It is like passing through a
jungle to discover a new country, like
going on an exploration to the North
Pole! So, if you do that with the laws of
grammar, I assure you nothing in the
world can bore you afterwards.
… Continued

Understand
instead of
learning.
… Continued
 I admit this asks for a very great concentration.
It demands a concentration capable of
penetrating, digging a hole into the mental shell
and passing through to the other side.
 And afterwards, it becomes worth the trouble....
You have been pushed against something cold,
rigid, hard, unelastic. Then you concentrate,
concentrate, concentrate sufficiently until...
suddenly you are on the other side, and then
you emerge into the light and you understand:
“Ah! that’s wonderful! Now I understand.” A very
tiny thing gives you a great joy.
 You see it is possible not to get bored at school.
 5. CONTROLLING THE VITAL
WHICH GETS BORED
 There are people who have a
pretty little theory like that,
which I have often heard; they
say that one’s vital should
never be repressed, it must be
allowed to do all it wants, it will
get tired and be cured!
 This is the height of stupidity!
… Continued
 First,because the vital by its very
nature is never satisfied, and if a
certain kind of activity becomes
insipid, it will double the dose: if
its stupidities bore it, it will
increase its stupidities and its
excesses, and if that tires it, as
soon as it has rested it will start
again. For it will not be changed.
… Continued
 Others say that if you sit upon your
vital it will be suppressed and, one
day, it will shoot up like a steam-jet...
and this is true.
 Hence, to repress the vital is not a
solution. To let it do what it likes is not
a solution either, and generally this
brings on fairly serious disorders.
There must be a third solution.
… Continued
 To aspire that the light from above may come and
purify it ?
 Obviously, but the problem remains. You aspire for
a change, perhaps for a specific change; but the
answer to your aspiration will not come
immediately and in the meantime your nature will
resist.
 Things happen like this: at a given moment the
nature seems to have yielded and you think you
have got the desired result. Your aspiration
diminishes in intensity because you think you
have the desired result.
 But the other fellow, who is very cunning and is
waiting quietly in his corner, when you are off your
guard, he springs up like a jack-in-the-box, and
then you must begin all over again.
… Continued
 But if one can tear out completely the root of the
thing?
 Ah! One must not be so sure of that. I have known
people who wanted to save the world by reducing
it so much that there was no longer a world left!
 This is the ascetic way—you want to do away with
the problem by doing away with the possibility of
the problem. But this will never change anything.
 No, there is a method—a sure one—but your
method must be very clear-sighted and you must
have a wide-awake consciousness of your person
and of what goes on there and the way in which
things happen.
… Continued
 Let us take the instance of a person
subject to outbursts of rage and violence.
 According to one method he would be
told: “Get as angry as you like, you will
suffer the consequences of your anger and
this will cure you.” This is debatable.
 According to another method he would be
told: “Sit upon your anger and it will
disappear.” This too is debatable.
 In any case, you will have to sit upon it all
the time, for if ever you should get up for a
minute you will see immediately what
happens!
… Continued
 Then, what is to be done?
 You must become more and more
conscious. You must observe how the
thing happens, by what road the danger
approaches, and stand in the way
before it can take hold of you.
 If you want to cure yourself of a defect
or a difficulty, there is but one method:
to be perfectly vigilant, to have a very
alert and vigilant consciousness.
… Continued
 First you must see very clearly what you
want to do. You must not hesitate, be full
of doubt and say, “Is it good to do this or
not, does this come into the synthesis or
should it not come in?”
 You will see that if you trust your mind, it
will always shuttle back and forth: it
vacillates all the time.
 If you take a decision it will put before you
all the arguments to show you that your
decision is not good, and you will be
tossed between the “yes” and “no”, the
black and white, and will arrive at nothing.
… Continued
 Hence, first, you must know exactly what
you want—know, not mentally, but through
concentration, through aspiration and a
very conscious will. That is the important
point.
 Afterwards, gradually, by observation, by a
sustained vigilance, you must realise a sort
of method which will be personal to you—it
is useless to convince others to adopt the
same method as yours, for that won’t
succeed.
… Continued
 Everyone must find his own
method, everyone must have his
own method, and to the extent you
put into practice your method, it
will become clearer and clearer,
more and more precise. You can
correct a certain point, make clear
another, etc. So, you start
working....
… Continued
 For a while, all will go well. Then, one day, you
will find yourself facing an insurmountable
difficulty and will tell yourself, “I have done all
that and look, everything is as bad as before!”
 Then, in this case, you must, through a yet
more sustained concentration, open an inner
door in you and bring into this movement a
force which was not there formerly, a state of
consciousness which was not there before.
 And there, there will be a power, when your
own personal power will be exhausted and no
longer effective.
… Continued
 When the personal power runs out ordinary
people say, “That’s good, I can no longer
do anything, it is finished.” But I tell you
that when you find yourself before this wall,
it is the beginning of something new.
 By an obstinate concentration, you must
pass over to the other side of the wall and
there you will find a new knowledge, a new
force, a new power, a new help, and you will
be able to work out a new system, a new
method which surely will take you very far.
… Continued
 I do not say this to discourage you;
only, things happen like that. And the
worst of all is to get discouraged when
it happens.
 You must tell yourself, “With the means
of transport at my disposal I have
reached a certain point, but these
means do not allow me to go further.
What should I do?... Sit there and not
stir any longer?—Not at all. I must find
other means of transport.”
… Continued
 This will happen quite often, but after a
while you will get used to it.
 You must sit down for a moment,
meditate, and then find other means.
 You must increase your concentration,
your aspiration and your trust and with
the new help which comes to you,
make a new programme, work out other
means to replace those you have left
behind.
… Continued
 This is how one progresses stage by stage. But
you must take great care to apply at each stage,
as perfectly as possible, what you have gained
or learnt.
 If you remain in an indrawn state of
consciousness and do not apply materially the
inner progress, a time will certainly come when
you will not be able to move at all, for your outer
being, unchanged, will be like a fetter pulling
you back and hindering you from advancing.
 So, the most important point (what everybody
says but only a few do) is to put into practice
what you know. With that you have a good
chance of succeeding, and with perseverance
you will certainly get there.
… Continued
 You must never get discouraged
when you find yourself before a
wall, never say, “Oh! What shall I
do? It is still there.” In this way the
difficulty will still be there and still
there and still there, till the very
end. It is only when you reach the
goal that everything will suddenly
crumble down.
 6. A REASON
WHY WE FIND A PERSON BORING
 When one speaks to others, one rarely
comes to an agreement, for people do not
see things in the same way. Or if I see the
other’s point of view, I cannot accept it.
 That means you are not plastic. You may be
sure that if you find a person boring, he will
also find you boring.
 You will never arrive at anything if you do not
take the attitude of putting yourself in the
place of the other, this is indispensable.
 When someone tells you something you do
not understand, you must not say, “He
knows nothing”, but you must try to
understand.
… Continued
 If you want to be quite sincere, even
when a child comes and tells you
something you do not understand, you
must not say, “This child is stupid”, but
“It is I who am stupid, because I do not
understand!”
 There are a hundred ways of looking at
a problem. If you want to find the
solution, you must take up all the
elements one after another, rise above
them and see how they harmonise.
… Continued
 There is a state of consciousness which may be
called “gnostic”, in which you are able to see at the
same time all the theories, all the beliefs, all the
ideas men have expressed in their highest
consciousness—the most contradictory notions, like
the Buddhistic, the Vedantic, the Christian theories,
all the philosophical theories, all the expressions of
the human mind when it has managed to catch a
little corner of the Truth—and in that state, not only
do you put each thing in its place, but everything
appears to you marvellously true and quite
indispensable in order to be able to understand
anything at all about anything whatsoever.
 There is a state of consciousness... Oh, I was going
to tell you things you cannot yet understand. I shall
give you a simpler example.
… Continued
 Anatole France said in one of his
books: “So long as men did not try to
make the world progress, all went well
and everybody was satisfied—no worry
about perfecting oneself or perfecting
the world, consequently all went well.
Therefore the worst thing is to want to
make others progress; let them do what
they like and don’t bother about
anything, that will be much more wise.”
… Continued
 On the contrary, others tell you:
“There is a Truth to be attained;
the world is in a state of
ignorance and one must at all
costs, in spite of the difficulty
of the way, enlighten man’s
consciousness and pull him
out of his ignorance.”
… Continued
 But I tell you that there is a state of
consciousness in which both the ways of
seeing are absolutely equally true.
 Naturally, if you take only two aspects, it is
difficult to see clearly; one must be able to
see all the aspects of the truth glimpsed by
the human intelligence and... something
more.
 And then, in that state, nothing is
absolutely false, nothing is absolutely bad.
In that state one is free from all problems,
all difficulties, all battles and everything
appears to you wonderfully harmonious.
… Continued
 Butif you try to imitate this
condition mentally—do you
understand? To make a mental
imitation of it—you may be sure of
doing stupid things; you will be
one of those who have a chaos in
their head and can say the most
contradictory things without even
being aware of it.
… Continued
 Inthat condition there is no
contradiction—it is a totality and a
totality in which one has the full
knowledge of all the truths
expressed (which are not sufficient
to express the total Truth), in which
one knows the respective places of
all things, why and of what the
universe is formed.
… Continued
 Only—I hasten to tell you this—it is not by a
personal effort that one reaches this
condition; it is not because one tries to
obtain it that one obtains it. You become
that, spontaneously.
 It is, if you like, the crowning of an absolute
mental sincerity, when you no longer have
any partiality, any preference, any
attachment to an idea, when you do not
even try any longer to know the truth. You
are simply open in the Light, that’s all.
… Continued
 I am telling you this, this evening,
because what is done, what has been
realised by one can be realised by
others.
 It is enough that one body has been
able to realise that, one human body, to
have the assurance that it can be done.
 You may consider it still very far off, but
you can say, “Yes, the gnostic life is
certain, because it has begun to be
realised.”
 7. THE MOST COMMON SYMPTOM
OF A BORING PERSON
 Sweet Mother, why do men take
pleasure in making a lot of noise?
 In making a noise? Because they like to
deaden themselves. In silence they
have to face their own difficulties, they
are in front of themselves, and usually
they don’t like that.
 In the noise they forget everything, they
become stupefied. So they are happy.
… Continued
 Constantly man rushes into
external action in order not
to have time to observe
himself and how he lives.
 For him this is expressed by
the desire to escape from
boredom.
… Continued
 Indeed, for some people it is much more
tiresome to remain quiet—seated, or to be still.
So for them it represents an escape from
boredom: to make a lot of noise, to commit
many stupidities, and become terribly restless;
it is their way of escaping boredom.
 And when they sit quietly and look at
themselves, they are bored. Perhaps because
they are boring. That’s very likely.
 The more boring one is, the more one is bored.
Very interesting people usually are not bored.
 8. Attitute we must have
to avoid Boredom
 We are not on earth to follow
our own sweet will but to
progress.
 Physical exercises are not done
for fun or to satisfy one’s
whims, but as a methodical
discipline to develop and
strengthen the body.
… Continued
 True wisdom is to take pleasure in
everything one does and that is
possible if one takes everything
one does as a way to progress.
 Perfection is difficult to attain and
there is always a great deal of
progress to be made in order to
achieve it.
… Continued
 To seek pleasure is certainly the
best way to make yourself
miserable.
 If you truly want peace and
happiness, your constant
preoccupation should be: “What
progress must I make to be able
to know and serve the Divine?”
9. Role of Psychic being in Boredom
 How can one know whether the psychic being is in front
or not?
 Who? Oneself?... It is not felt, no? You don’t feel it? I
am not speaking of a small child, for it has no means
of control and observation, it lacks the capacity of
observation. But then, when one is no longer a baby,
doesn’t one feel it? It doesn’t make a difference?...
(The child nods in assent.)
 Ah!... There is not one of you who will dare to tell me
that it makes no difference when the psychic is
there, when one feels better within oneself, when
one is full of light, hope, goodwill, generosity,
compassion for the world, and sees life as a field of
action, progress, realisation.
… Continued
 Doesn’tit make a difference from
the days when one is bored,
grumbling, when everything seems
ugly, unpleasant, wicked, when one
loves nobody, wants to break
everything, gets angry, feels ill at
ease, without strength, without
energy, without any joy? That
makes a difference, doesn’t it?
 PART–2
Getting out of
Boredom
 Two basic prerequisites
 Organising one’s being around the Central
Consciousness
 Correct Contemplation
 Making One’s Consciousness Vast
 Disciplining the Imagination
 Training one’s Senses to Develop
 To Act in Harmony with the Divine Will
 Aspiration for Purity (for spiritual seekers)
 Establishing Homogeneity in the Being ( - do - )
 10. Two basic prerequisites
1. You must understand the Need of an Integral
Development of all Human Faculties
 You see, there are two very different lines; they can
converge because everything can be made to
converge; but as I said, there are two lines really
very different.
 One is a perpetual choice, not only of what one
reads but of what one does, of what one thinks, of
all one’s activities, of strictly doing only what can
help you on the spiritual path; it does not
necessarily have to be very narrow and limited, but
it must be on a little higher plane than the ordinary
life, and with a concentration of will and aspiration
which does not allow any wandering on the path,
going here and there uselessly.
… Continued
 This is austere; it is difficult to take up this when one
is very young, because one feels that the instrument
that he is has not been sufficiently formed or is not
rich enough to be allowed to remain what it is
without growing and progressing. So, generally
speaking, except for a very small number, it comes
later, after a certain development and some
experience of life.
 The other path is that of as complete, as integral a
development as possible of all human faculties, of all
that one carries in himself, all one’s possibilities,
then, spreading out as widely as possible in all
directions, in order to fill one’s consciousness with
all human possibilities, to know the world and life
and men and their work as it now is, to create a vast
and rich base for the future ascent.
… Continued
 Usually this is what we expect of children;
except as I said, in absolutely rare, exceptional
cases of children who have in them a psychic
being which has already had all the experiences
before incarnating this time, and no longer
needs any more experiences, which only wants
to realise the Divine and live Him. But these, you
see, are one-in-a-million cases.
 Otherwise, till a certain age, so long as one is
very young, it is good to develop oneself, to
spread out as much as possible in all directions,
to draw out all the potentialities one holds, and
turn them into expressed, conscious, active
things, so as to have a fairly solid foundation for
the ascent. Otherwise it is a bit poor.
… Continued
 That is why you must learn, love to learn, always
learn, not waste your time in... well, in filling
yourself with useless things or doing useless
things. You must do everything with this aim, to
enrich your possibilities, develop those you
have, acquire new ones, and become as
complete, as perfect a human being as you can.
 That is, even on this line you must take things
seriously, not simply pass your time because
you are here, and waste it as much as possible
because you have to pass it somehow.
… Continued
 2. You must try to eliminate from your
consciousness all that is darkly attached to living
uselessly
 That is the attitude of men in general: they come into
life, they don’t know why; they know that they will
live a certain number of years, they don’t know why;
they think that they will have to pass away because
everybody passes away, and they again don’t know
why; and then, most of the time they are bored
because they have nothing in themselves, they are
empty beings and there is nothing more boring than
emptiness; and so they try to fill this by distraction,
they become absolutely useless, and when they
reach the end they have wasted their whole
existence, all their possibilities—and everything is
lost.
… Continued
 This you will see: take a thousand men, out of
them at least nine hundred and ninety are in this
condition. It happens that they are born in certain
circumstances or certain others, and they try, you
see, to pass their time as well as they can, to be
bored as little as possible, to suffer as little as
possible, to have as good a time as possible; and
everything is dull, lifeless, useless, stupid, and
absolutely without any result. There, then.
 This is the majority of human beings, and they
don’t even think... they don’t even ask themselves,
“But indeed, why am I here? Why is there an
earth? Why are there men? Why do I live?” No, all
these things are absolutely uninteresting.
… Continued
 The only interesting thing is to try to eat well, to have
good fun, be nicely distracted, well married, have
children, earn money and have all the advantages one
can get from the point of view of desires, and above all,
above all not think, not reflect, not ask any questions,
and avoid all trouble. Yes, and then get out of it like
that, without too many catastrophes.
 This is the general condition; this is what men call
being reasonable. And in this way the world can turn
round indefinitely for eternity, it will never progress.
 And this is why all these are like ants; they come,
crawl, die, go away, come back, crawl again, die again,
and so on. And it can last for eternities like this.
 Fortunately there are some who do the work of all the
others, but it’s only these who will make everything
change one day.
… Continued
 So the first problem is to know on which side one
wants to be: on the side of those who are doing
something or the side of those who do nothing; on
the side of those who, perhaps, will be able to
understand what life is and do what is necessary for
this life to culminate in something, or else of those
who hardly care to understand anything at all and try
to pass their time in having as few botherations as
possible. Above all, no botherations!
 There we are. This is the first choice. After this there
are many others.
 So there, my children. Now, if you wish to have a
meditation, say so. Yes or no? Yes? Good! Try to
eliminate from your consciousness all that is darkly
attached to living uselessly.
 11. Organising one’s being around the
Central Consciousness
 “It is only by observing these movements (of
our being) with great care, by bringing them,
as it were, before the tribunal of our highest
ideal, with a sincere will to submit to its
judgment, that we can hope to educate in us
a discernment which does not err.”
 One must be clearly aware of the origin of
one’s movements because there are
contradictory velleities in the being—some
pushing you here, others pushing you there,
and that obviously creates a chaos in life.
… Continued
 If you observe yourself, you will see
that as soon as you do something
which disturbs you a little, the mind
immediately gives you a favourable
reason to justify yourself—this mind is
capable of gilding everything.
 In these conditions it is difficult to
know oneself. One must be absolutely
sincere to be able to do it and to see
clearly into all the little falsehoods of
the mental being.
… Continued
 If in your mind you go over the various
movements and reactions of the day like
one repeating indefinitely the same thing,
you will not progress.
 If this reviewing is to make you progress,
you must find something within you in
whose light you yourself can be your
own judge, something which represents
for you the best part of yourself, which
has some light, some goodwill and
which precisely is in love with progress.
… Continued
 Place that before you and, first of all,
pass across it as at a cinema all that you
have done, all that you have felt, your
impulses, your thoughts, etc.; then try to
coordinate them, that is, find out why
this has followed that.
 And look at the luminous screen that is
before you: certain things pass across it
well, without throwing a shadow; others,
on the contrary, throw a little shadow;
others yet cast a shadow altogether
black and disagreeable.
… Continued
 You must do this very sincerely, as though
you were playing a game: under such
circumstances I did such and such a thing,
feeling like this and thinking in this way; I
have before me my ideal of knowledge and
self-mastery, well, was this act in keeping
with my ideal or not?
 If it was, it would not leave any shadow on
the screen, which would remain transparent,
and one would not have to worry about it. If it
is not in conformity, it casts a shadow.
… Continued
 Why has it left this shadow? What was
there in this act that was contrary to the
will to self-knowledge and self-mastery?
 Most often you will find that it
corresponds to unconsciousness—
then you file it among unconscious
things and resolve that next time you
will try to be conscious before doing
anything.
… Continued
 But in other cases you will see that it was a nasty
little egoism, quite black, which had come to distort
your action or your thought. Then you place this
egoism before your “light” and ask yourself: “Why
has it the right to make me act like that, think like
that?...” And instead of accepting any odd
explanation you must search and you will find in a
corner of your being something which thinks and
says, “Ah, no, I shall accept everything but that.”
You will see that it is a petty vanity, a movement of
self-love, an egoistic feeling hidden somewhere, a
hundred things. Then you take a good look at these
things in the light of your ideal: “Is cherishing this
movement in conformity with my seeking and the
realisation of my ideal or not? I put this little dark
corner in front of the light until the light enters into it
and it disappears.” Then the comedy is over.
… Continued
 But the comedy of your whole day is
not finished yet, you know, for there are
many things which have to pass thus
before the light.
 But if you continue this game—for truly
it is a game, if you do this sincerely—I
assure you that in six months you will
not recognise yourself, you will say to
yourself, “What? I was like that! It is
impossible!”
… Continued
 You may be five years old or twenty,
fifty or sixty and yet transform yourself
in this way by putting everything before
this inner light.
 You will see that the elements which do
not conform with your ideal are not
generally elements which you have to
throw wholly out of yourself (there are
very few of this kind); they are simply
things not in their place.
… Continued
 If you organise everything—your feelings, your
thoughts, your impulses, etc.—around the psychic
centre which is the inner light, you will see that all
inner disorder will change into a luminous order.
 It is quite evident that if a similar procedure were
adopted by a nation or by the earth, most of the
things which make men unhappy would disappear,
for the major part of the world’s misery comes
from the fact that things are not in their place.
 If life were organised in such a way that nothing
was wasted and each thing was in its place, most
of these miseries would not exist any longer.
… Continued
An old sage has said:
 “There is no evil. There is only a lack of
balance.
 “There is nothing bad. Only things are
not in their place.”
 If everything were in its place, in
nations, in the material world, in the
actions and thoughts and feelings of
individuals, the greater part of human
suffering would disappear.
 12. Correct Contemplation
 And finally, correct contemplation. Egoless
thought concentrated on the essence of
things, on the in most truth and on the goal to
be attained. How often there is a kind of
emptiness in the course of life, an unoccupied
moment, a few minutes, sometimes more. And
what do you do? Immediately you try to
distract yourself, and you invent some
foolishness or other to pass your time. That is
a common fact.
 All men, from the youngest to the oldest,
spend most of their time in trying not to be
bored. Their pet aversion is boredom and the
way to escape from boredom is to act
foolishly.
… Continued
 Well, there is a better way than that—to
remember. When you have a little time,
whether it is one hour or a few minutes,
tell yourself, “At last, I have some time to
concentrate, to collect myself, to relive
the purpose of my life, to offer myself to
the True and the Eternal.”
 If you took care to do this each time you
are not harassed by outer circumstances,
you would find out that you were
advancing very quickly on the path.
… Continued
 Instead of wasting your time in chattering, in
doing useless things, reading things that lower
the consciousness—to choose only the best
cases, I am not speaking of other imbecilities
which are much more serious —instead of
trying to make yourself giddy, to make time,
that is already so short, still shorter only to
realise at the end of your life that you have lost
three-quarters of your chance—then you want
to put in double time, but that does not work—
it is better to be moderate, balanced, patient,
quiet, but never to lose an opportunity that is
given to you, that is to say, to utilise for the
true purpose the unoccupied moment before
you.
… Continued
 When you have nothing to do, you become
restless, you run about, you meet friends,
you take a walk, to speak only of the best; I
am not referring to things that are obviously
not to be done.
 Instead of that, sit down quietly before the
sky, before the sea or under trees, whatever
is possible (here you have all of them) and
try to realise one of these things—to
understand why you live, to learn how you
must live, to ponder over what you want to
do and what should be done, what is the
best way of escaping from the ignorance
and falsehood and pain in which you live.
 13. Making One’s
Consciousness Vast
 Vast? Ah, there are many ways of doing this. The easiest
way is to identify yourself with something vast.
 For instance, when you feel that you are shut up in a
completely narrow and limited thought, will,
consciousness, when you feel as though you were in a
shell, then if you begin thinking about something very
vast, as for example, the immensity of the waters of an
ocean, and if really you can think of this ocean and how it
stretches out far, far, far, far, in all directions, like this
(Mother stretches out her arms), how, compared with
you, it is so far, so far that you cannot see the other
shore, you cannot reach its end anywhere, neither behind
nor in front nor to the right or left... it is wide, wide, wide,
wide... you think of this and then you feel that you are
floating on this sea, like that, and that there are no
limits.... This is very easy. Then you can widen your
consciousness a little.
… Continued
 Other people, for example, begin looking at
the sky; and then they imagine all those
spaces between all those stars, and all...
that kind of infinity of spaces in which the
earth is a tiny point, and you too are just a
very tiny point, smaller than an ant, on the
earth.
 And so you look at the sky and feel that you
are floating in these infinite spaces
between the planets, and that you are
growing vaster and vaster to go farther and
farther. Some people succeed with this.
… Continued
 There is a way also by trying to identify yourself
with all things upon earth.
 For example, when you have a small narrow vision
of something and are hurt by others’ vision and
point of view, you must begin by shifting your
consciousness, try to put it in others, and try
gradually to identify yourself with all the different
ways of thinking of all others.
 This is a little more ... how shall I put it?...
dangerous. Because to identify oneself with the
thought and will of others means to identify oneself
with a heap of stupidities (Mother laughs) and bad
wills, and this may bring consequences which are
not very good.
… Continued
 But still, some people do this more easily.
 For instance, when they are in
disagreement with someone, in order to
widen their consciousness they try to put
themselves in the place of the other and
see the thing not from their own point of
view but from the point of view of the
other.
 This widens the consciousness, though
not as much as by the first ways I spoke
about, which are quite innocent. They
don’t do you any harm, they do you much
good. They make you very peaceful.
… Continued
 There are lots of intellectual ways of widening the
consciousness. These I have explained fully in my book. But in
any case, when you are bored by something, when something is
painful to you or very unpleasant, if you begin to think of the
eternity of time and the immensity of space, if you think of all
that has gone before and all that will come afterwards, and that
this second in eternity is truly just a passing breath, and that it
seems so utterly ridiculous to be upset by something which in
the eternity of time is... one doesn’t even have the time to
become aware of it, it has no place, no importance, because,
what indeed is a second in eternity? If one can manage to
realise that, to... how to put it?... visualise, picture the little
person one is, in the little earth where one is, and the tiny
second of consciousness which for the moment is hurting you
or is unpleasant for you, just this —which in itself is only a
second in your existence, and that you yourself have been
many things before and will be many more things afterwards,
that what affects you now you will have probably completely
forgotten in ten years, or if you remember it you will say, “How
did I happen to attach any importance to that?”
… Continued
 ... if you can realise that first and then realise your little
person which is a second in eternity, not even a second, you
know, imperceptible, a fragment of a second in eternity, that
the whole world has unfolded before this and will unfold yet,
indefinitely—before, behind—and that... well, then suddenly
you sense the utter ridiculousness of the importance you
attach to what happened to you.... Truly you feel... to what
an extent it is absurd to attach any importance to one’s life,
to oneself, and to what happens to you.
 And in the space of three minutes, if you do this properly, all
unpleasantness is swept away. Even a very deep pain can
be swept away. Simply a concentration like this, and to
place oneself in infinity and eternity. Everything goes away.
One comes out of it cleansed.
 One can get rid of all attachments and even, I say, of the
deepest sorrows—of everything, in this way —if one knows
how to do it in the right way. It immediately takes you out of
your little ego. There we are.
 14. Disciplining the Imagination
 Imagination is something very complex and
manifold—what is vaguely called
“imagination”.
 It can be the capacity for seeing and
recording, noting the forms in some mental
or other domain.
 There are artistic, literary, poetic domains,
domains of action, scientific domains, all
belonging to the mind—not a very high and
abstract mind, a mind above the physical
mind which, without our knowing it, pours
out constantly through the individual and
collective mind to manifest in action.
… Continued
 Some people, through a special faculty, are
in contact with these domains, take up one
formation or other that is there, draw them to
themselves and give them an expression.
 This power of expression is different in
different people, but those who can open
themselves to these domains, to see things
there, to draw these forms towards
themselves and express them—either in
literature or in painting or music or in action
or science—are, according to the degree of
their power of expression either very highly
talented beings or else geniuses.
… Continued
 There are higher geniuses still.
 They are people who can open to a higher region, a
higher force which, passing through the mental
layers, comes and takes a form in a human mind and
reveals itself in the world as new truths, new
philosophical systems, new spiritual teachings,
which are the works and at the same time the actions
of the great beings who come to take birth on earth.
That is an imagination which can be called “Truth
imagination”.
 These higher forces, when they come down into the
earth-atmosphere, take living, active, powerful
forms, spread throughout the world and prepare a
new age. These two kinds of imagination are what
could be called higher imaginations.
… Continued
 And now, to come down to a more ordinary level,
everyone has in him, in a greater or lesser measure,
the power to give form to his mental activity and use
this form either in his ordinary activity or to create
and realise something.
 We are all the time, always, creating images, creating
forms. We send them into the atmosphere without
even knowing that we are doing so—they go
roaming about, pass from one person to another,
meet companions, sometimes join together and get
on happily, sometimes create conflicts, and there are
battles; for often, very often, in these mental
imaginations there is a small element of will which
tries to realise itself, and then everyone tries to send
out his formation so that it can act, so that things
can happen as he wants and, as everyone does this,
it creates a general confusion.
… Continued
 If our eyes were open to the vision of all these forms
in the atmosphere, we would see very amazing
things: battlefields, waves, onsets, retreats of a
crowd of small mental entities which are constantly
thrown out into the air and always try to realise
themselves.
 All these formations have a common tendency to
want to materialise and realise themselves
physically, and as they are countless—they are far
too many for there to be room enough on earth to
manifest them—they jostle and elbow one another,
they try to push back those which do not agree with
them or even form armies marching in good order,
always to take up the available room both in time
and space—it is only a very small space compared
with the countless number of creations. So,
individually, this is what happens.
… Continued
 Some people do all that without knowing it—perhaps
everybody—and they are constantly tossed from one thing
to another, and hope, wish, desire, are disappointed,
sometimes happy, sometimes in despair, for they don’t have
any control or mastery over these things.
 But the beginning of wisdom is to look at ourselves thinking
and to see this phenomenon, become aware of this
constant rejection into the atmosphere of small living
entities which are trying to manifest.
 All this comes out of the mental atmosphere which we carry
within ourselves.
 Once we see and observe, we can begin to sort them out,
that is, to push back what is not in conformity with our
highest will or aspiration and allow to move towards
manifestation only the formations which can help us to
progress and develop normally.
 This is the control of active thought, and that was what I
meant the other day.
… Continued
 How many times you sit and become aware that
the thought is beginning to form images for itself,
to tell itself a story; and so, when you have
become a little expert at it, not only do you see
unfolding before you the history of what you
would like to happen in life, in your own life, but
you can take something away, add a detail, perfect
your work, make a really fine story in which
everything conforms with your highest aspiration.
 And once you have made a complete harmonious
construction, as perfect as you can make it, then
you open your hands and let the bird fly away.
 If it is well made, it always realises itself in the
end. And that is what one doesn’t know.
… Continued
 But the thing is realised in the course of
time, sometimes long afterwards, when you
have forgotten your story, can no longer
remember having told it to yourself—you
have changed much, are thinking about other
things, making other stories, and the first
one no longer interests you; and if you are
not very attentive, when the result of the first
story comes, you are already very far away
from it and no longer remember at all that
this is the result of your own story....
… Continued
 And that is why it is so important to control yourself,
for if within you there are multiple and contradictory
wills—not only wills but tendencies, orientations,
levels of life —all this causes battles in your life.
 For example, at your highest level you have
fashioned a beautiful story which you send out into
the world, but then, perhaps the next day, perhaps
on the very same day, perhaps a little later, you have
come down to a much more material level, and these
things from above seem to you a little... fairylike,
unreal; and you begin to make very concrete, very
utilitarian formations which are not always very
pretty... and these too go out.
… Continued
 I have known people with such opposite sides
in their nature, so contradictory, that one day
they could make a magnificent, luminous,
powerful formation for realisation, and then the
next day a defeatist, dark, black formation—a
formation of despair —and so both would go
out.
 And I was able to follow in the course of
circumstances the beautiful one being
realised, and while it was being realised, the
dark one demolishing what the first one had
done. And that is how it is in the larger lines of
life as in its smaller details.
… Continued
 And all that because one does not watch oneself
thinking, because one believes one is the slave of
these contradictory movements, because one says,
“Oh! Today I am not feeling well. Oh! Today things
seem sad tome”, and one says this as if it were an
ineluctable fate against which one could do nothing.
 But if one stands back or ascends a step, one can
look at all these things, put them in their place, keep
some, destroy or get rid of those one does not want
and put all one’s imaginative power—what is called
imaginative—only in those one wants and which
conform with one’s highest aspiration.
 That is what I call controlling one’s imagination.
… Continued
 It is very interesting. When one
learns to do it and does it regularly
one no longer has time to feel bored.
 And instead of being a cork afloat on
the waves of the sea and tossed here
and there by each wave,
defencelessly, one becomes a bird
which opens its wings, flies above
the waves and goes wherever it
wants. That’s all.
 15. Training one’s Senses
to Develop
 Oh, the method is very easy. There are
disciplines. It depends on what you want to
do.
 It depends. For each thing there is a method.
And the first method is to want it, to begin
with, that is, to take a decision. Then you are
given a description of all these senses and
how they work—that takes some time.
 You take one sense or several, or the one
which is easiest for you to start with, and you
decide. Then you follow the discipline.
 It is the equivalent of exercises for
developing the muscles. You can even
succeed in creating a will in yourself.
… Continued
 Butfor more subtle things, the
method is to make for yourself an
exact image of what you want, to
come into contact with the
corresponding vibration, and then
to concentrate and do exercises —
such as to practise seeing through
an object or hearing through a
sound, or seeing at a distance.
… Continued
 For example, once, for a long time, for several
months, I was confined to bed and I found it rather
boring—I wanted to see.
 I was in a room and at one end there was another
little room and at the end of the little room there
was a kind of bridge; in the middle of the garden
the bridge became a staircase leading down into a
very big and very beautiful studio, standing in the
middle of the garden.
 I wanted to go and see what was happening in the
studio, for I was feeling bored in my room. So I
would remain very quiet, close my eyes and send
out my consciousness, little by little, little by little,
little by little.
… Continued
 And day after day—I chose a fixed time and
did the exercise regularly.
 At first you make use of your imagination
and then it becomes a fact.
 After some time I really had the physical
sensation that my vision was moving; I
followed it and then I could see things
downstairs which I knew nothing about.
 I would check afterwards. In the evening I
would ask, “Was this like that? And was that
like this?”
… Continued
 Mother explained later: “To hear behind the
sound is to come into contact with the subtle
reality which is behind the material fact,
behind the word or the physical sound or
behind music, for example.
 One concentrates and then one hears what is
behind. It means coming into contact with
the vital reality which is behind the
appearances.
 There can also be a mental reality, but
generally, what lies immediately behind the
physical sound is a vital reality.”
… Continued
 But for each one of these things you must practise
for months with patience, with a kind of obstinacy.
You take the senses one by one, hearing, sight,
and you can even arrive at subtle realities of taste,
smell and touch.
 From the mental point of view it is easier, for there
you are accustomed to concentration. When you
want to think and find a solution, instead of
following the deductions of thought, you stop
everything and try to concentrate and concentrate,
intensify the point of the problem.
 You stop everything and wait until, by the intensity
of the concentration, you obtain an answer. This
also requires some time. But if you used to be a
good student, you must be quite used to doing
that and it is not very difficult.
… Continued
 There is a kind of extension of the physical senses.
 Red Indians, for example, possess a sense of
hearing and smell with a far greater range than our
own—and dogs! I knew an Indian —he was my friend
when I was eight or ten years old. He had come with
Buffalo Bill, at the time of the Hippodrome— it was a
long time ago, I was eight years old—and he would
put his ear to the ground and was so clever that he
knew how far away... according to the intensity of the
vibration, he knew how far away someone’s
footsteps were.
 After that, the children would immediately say, “I
wish I knew how to do that!” And then you try. That
is how you prepare yourself. You think you are
playing but you are preparing yourself for later on.
 16. To Act in Harmony
with the Divine Will
 If you use power to show that you possess it, it
becomes so full of falsehood and untruth that finally
it disappears. But it is not always thus, because, as I
said at the beginning, when it concerns a power like
the power of healing or the power of changing an
altogether external thing—of making an
unfavourable circumstance favourable, of finding
lost objects, all these countless little “miracles”
which are found in all religions—it is much more
easy and even more effective to do these “miracles”
with the help of the entities of the vital world which
are not always recommendable, far from it; and then
these beings make fun of you. This begins very well,
very brilliantly, and usually finishes very badly.
… Continued
 I know the story of a man who had a few small
powers and indulged in all kinds of so-called
“spiritualist” practices, and through repeated
exercises he had succeeded in coming into
conscious contact with what he called a “spirit”.
 This man was doing business; he was a financier
and was even a speculator. His relations with his
“spirit” were of a very practical kind! This spirit used
to tell him when the stocks and shares would go up
and when they would come down; it told him, “Sell
this”, “Buy that”—it gave him very precise financial
particulars.
 For years he had been listening to his “spirit” and
had followed it, and was fantastically successful; he
became tremendously rich and naturally boasted a
lot about the spirit which “guided” him.
… Continued
 He used to tell everybody, “You see, it is really
worthwhile learning how to put oneself in contact
with these spirits.” But one day he met a man who
was a little wiser, who told him, “Take care.”
 He did not listen to him, he was swollen with his
power and ambition. And it was then that his “spirit”
gave him a last advice, “Now you can become the
richest man in the world. Your ambition will be
fulfilled. You have only to follow my direction.
 Do this: put all that you have into this transaction
and you will become the richest man in the world.”
The stupid fool did not even realise the trap laid for
him: for years he had followed his “guide” and
succeeded, so he followed the last direction; and he
lost everything, to the last penny.
… Continued
 So you see, these are small entities who make fun of
you, and to make sure of you they work these little
miracles to encourage you, and when they feel that you
are well trapped, they play a fine trick upon you and it
is all over with you.
 We have said that there is only one safety, never to act
except in harmony with the divine Will.
 There is one question: how to know that it is the divine
Will which makes you act? I replied to the person who
put to me this question (although this person did not
agree with me) that it is not difficult to distinguish the
voice of the Divine: one cannot make a mistake.
 You need not be very far on the path to be able to
recognise it; you must listen to the still, small peaceful
voice which speaks in the silence of your heart.
… Continued
 I forgot one thing: to hear it you must be
absolutely sincere, for if you are not sincere, you
will begin by deceiving yourself and you will hear
nothing at all except the voice of your ego and
then you will commit with assurance (thinking that
it is the real small voice) the most awful
stupidities.
 But if you are sincere, the way is sure. It is not
even a voice, not even a sensation, it is something
extremely subtle—a slight indication. When
everything goes well, that is, when you do nothing
contrary to the divine Will, you will not perhaps
have any definite impression, everything will seem
to you normal.
… Continued
 Of course, you should be eager to know whether you
are acting in accordance with the divine Will, that is
the first point, naturally, without which you can know
nothing at all.
 But once you are eager and you pay attention,
everything seems to you normal, natural, then all of
a sudden, you feel a little uneasiness somewhere in
the head, in the heart or even in the stomach—
generally one doesn’t give it a thought; you may feel
it several times in the day but you reject it without
giving it any attention; but it is no longer quite the
same; then, at that moment, you must stop, no
matter what you may be doing, and look, and if you
are sincere, you will notice a small black spot (a tiny
wicked idea, a tiny false movement, a small arbitrary
decision) and that’s the source of the uneasiness.
… Continued
 You will notice then that the little black spot comes from
the ego which is full of preferences; generally it does
what it likes; the things it likes are called good and
those it does not are called bad—this clouds your
judgment. It is difficult to judge under these conditions.
 If you truly want to know, you must draw back a step
and look, and you will know then that it is this small
movement of the ego which is the cause of the
uneasiness.
 You will see that it is a tiny thing curled back upon itself;
you will have the impression of being in front of
something hard which resists or is black.
 Then with patience, from the height of your
consciousness, you must explain to this thing its
mistake, and in the end it will disappear.
… Continued
 I do not say that you will succeed all at once the
very first day, but if you try sincerely, you will
always end with success.
 And if you persevere, you will see that all of a
sudden you are relieved of a mass of meanness
and ugliness and obscurity which was preventing
you from flowering in the light. It is those things
which make you shrivel up, prevent you from
widening yourself, opening out in a light where
you have the impression of being very
comfortable.
 If you make this effort, you will see finally that you
are very far from the point where you had begun,
the things you did not feel, did not understand,
have become clear. If you are resolved, you are
sure to succeed.
… Continued
 This is the first step towards unifying yourself,
becoming a conscious being who has a central will and
acts only according to this will, which will be a
constant expression of the divine Will. It is worth
trying.
 And I may tell you from my personal experience that
there is nothing in the world more interesting. If you
begin making this effort you will find that your life is
full of interest—you know, of the ordinary life of people
at least a third is a kind of dull boredom (I say a third,
but for some two-thirds of the day is a dull boredom),
and all that gets volatilised! Everything becomes so
interesting, the least little thing, the least casual
meeting, the least word exchanged, the least thing
displaced—everything is full of life and interest.
 17. Aspiration for Purity
(for spiritual seekers)
 You will see, the more you strive to realise, you will
discover in the nature—the lower nature, that is, the
lower mind, the lower vital, the physical—how much
pretension, sham and ambition there is.... One can use
any...
 The desire to put on airs: all that must be eliminated,
absolutely, radically, and replaced by a sincere flame of
aspiration, of aspiration for the purity which makes us
live only for what the Supreme Consciousness demands
of us, which makes us able to do only what it wants,
which makes us do only what it wants, when it wants.
 Then we can be entirely different.... It is a little far along
the path, but we try to do that, always, this purification
of the whole being which... Then there is no more
school, teachers, students, boredom; there is... life
trying to transform itself. There: that is the ideal, this is
where we have to go.
 18. Establishing Homogeneity
in the Being (for spiritual seekers)
 Don’t you know what a homogeneous thing
is, made up of all similar parts? That means
the whole being must be under the same
influence, same consciousness, same
tendency, same will.
 We are formed of all kinds of different
pieces. They become active one after
another. According to the part that is active,
one is quite another person, becomes
almost another personality.
… Continued
 For instance, one had an aspiration at
first, felt that everything existed only for
the Divine, then something happens,
somebody comes along, one has to do
something, and everything disappears.
 One tries to recall the experience, not
even the memory of the experience
remains. One is completely under
another influence, one wonders how this
could have happened.
… Continued
 There are examples of double, triple, quadruple
personalities, altogether unconscious of themselves....
 But it is not about this I am speaking; I am speaking
about something which has happened to all of you: you
have had an experience, and for some time you have
felt, understood that this experience was the only thing
that was important, that had an absolute value—half an
hour later you try to recall it, it is like a smoke that
vanishes. The experience has disappeared. And yet
half an hour ago it was there and so powerful.... It is
because one is made of all kinds of different things.
 The body is like a bag with pebbles and pearls all
mixed up, and it is only the bag which keeps all that
together. This is not a homogeneous, uniform
consciousness but a heterogeneous one.
… Continued
 You can be a different person at different
moments in your life.
 I know people who took decisions, had a strong
will, knew what they wanted and prepared to do
it. Then there was a little reversal in the being;
another part came up and spoilt all the work in
ten minutes.
 What had been accomplished in two months
was all undone. When the first part comes back
it is in dismay, it says: “What!...” Then the
whole work has to be started again, slowly.
… Continued
 Hence it is evident that it is very important to
become aware of the psychic being; one must
have a kind of signpost or a mirror in which all
things are reflected and show themselves as
they truly are.
 And then, according to what they are, one puts
them in one place or another; one begins to
explain, to organise. That takes time.
 The same part comes back three or four times
and every part that comes up says: “Put me in
the first place; what the others do is not
important, not at all important, it is I who will
decide, for I am the most important.”
… Continued
 I am sure that if you look at yourself, you will see
that there’s not one among you who has not had
the experience.
 You want to become conscious, to have
goodwill, you have understood, your aspiration
is shining—all is brilliant, illuminated; but all of a
sudden something happens, a useless
conversation, some unfortunate reading, and
that upsets everything.
 Then one thinks that it was an illusion one lived
in, that all things were seen from a certain angle.
… Continued
 This is life. One stumbles and falls at the
first occasion. One tells oneself: “Oh! One
can’t always be so serious”, and when the
other part returns, once again, one repents
bitterly: “I was a fool, I have wasted my
time, now I must begin again....”
 At times there is one part that’s ill-
humoured, in revolt, full of worries, and
another which is progressive, full of
surrender. All that, one after the other.
… Continued
 There is but one remedy: that signpost must
always be there, a mirror well placed in one’s
feelings, impulses, all one’s sensations. One
sees them in this mirror.
 There are some which are not very beautiful
or pleasant to look at; there are others which
are beautiful, pleasant, and must be kept.
 This one does a hundred times a day if
necessary. And it is very interesting. One
draws a kind of big circle around the psychic
mirror and arranges all the elements around
it.
… Continued
 If there is something that is not all right, it
casts a sort of grey shadow upon the mirror:
this element must be shifted, organised. It
must be spoken to, made to understand, one
must come out of that darkness. If you do that,
you never get bored.
 When people are not kind, when one has a
cold in the head, when one doesn’t know one’s
lessons, and so on, one begins to look into
this mirror. It is very interesting, one sees the
canker. “I thought I was sincere!”—Not at all.
… Continued
 Not a thing happens in life which is not
interesting. This mirror is very, very well
made.
 Do that for two years, three, four years, at
times one must do it for twenty years.
 Then at the end of a few years, look back,
turn your gaze upon what you were three
years ago: “How I have changed!... Was I
like that?...” It is very entertaining. “I could
speak like that? I could talk like that, think
like that?... But I was indeed stupid! How I
have changed!” It’s very interesting, isn’t
it?
Thank You.
Thank You..
Thank You...