Handling difficultiesHandling difficultiesHandling difficultiesHandling difficulties
  • Inspirations from Sri Aurobindo
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    • Prayers and MeditationsA record of the Mother’s early spiritual life, from her diaries. Most entries are from 1912 to 1917
    • Questions and Answers 1929-1931Early conversations on various aspects of spiritual life; and commentaries on the Dhammapada
    • Questions and Answers 1953Conversations based on the Mother’s conversations of 1929.
    • Questions and Answers 1950-1951Conversations based on Sri Aurobindo’s book The Mother, the Mother’s essays on education and her conversations
    • Questions and Answers 1954Conversations based on the Mother’s essays on education and three small books by Sri Aurobindo: Elements of Yoga, Bases of Yoga and The Mother.
    • Questions and Answers 1955Conversations based on three works by Sri Aurobindo: Bases of Yoga, Lights on Yoga and The Synthesis of Yoga.
    • Questions and Answers 1957-1958Conversations based on three works by Sri Aurobindo: Thoughts and Glimpses, The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth and The Life Divine.
    • Some Answers from The MotherCorrespondence with fourteen sadhaks and students
    • Words of The Mother Vol. IShort written statements on Sri Aurobindo, herself, the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Auroville, India and nations other than India; and a few conversations.
    • Words of The Mother Vol. IIIShort written statements on various aspects of spiritual life; and thirty conversations.
    • White Roses

Handling difficulties

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  • Handling difficulties
Sri Aurobindo in his own room
Psychic Mind and Spiritual Mind
11/04/2022
The Mother of Sri Aurobindo Ashram
Escaping from other people’s influence
11/06/2022
Published by The Mother on 11/05/2022
Categories
  • Questions and Answers 1955
Tags
  • calling the mother
  • confidence in the Mother
  • differences

Sweet Mother, when one has a difficulty in the day and it is not possible to see you or tell you about it, what should one do?

If it is not at all possible, you must sit quite alone, try to become silent, call, call me as though I were there, make me come and put the difficulty before me absolutely sincerely and objectively; and then remain very silent, very quiet and wait for the result.

And I think the result comes. For it depends on the nature of the difficulty. If it is a problem that’s to be solved, then the solution comes; if it is an inner movement, something that has gone wrong, then usually if one does this very sincerely, well, it is put back in its place; and if it is a decision that’s to be taken, if it is something one doesn’t know whether one must do or not do, then this too, if one is very quiet one knows whether it’s a yes or no; it comes: “Yes” or “No”. Then here you must not discuss any more, the mind must not say, “But if…? and then…”, for then everything becomes foggy. You must say, “Good!” and follow like this. But for this you must be sincere, in the sense that you must have no preferences.

If the difficulty comes from one part of the being wanting one thing and another part of the being knowing that one must not have it, then it becomes complicated because the part which wants can try to introduce its own will into the answer. So when one sits down, first one must begin by persuading it to make a little act of sincere surrender, and it is here that one can make true progress, saying, “Now I am conscious that it is this that I desire, but I am ready to give up my desire if that should be done.” But you must do this not only in the head, it must be done sincerely, and then you proceed as I said. Then one knows—knows what’s to be done.

Sometimes it is easier when you write it down; you imagine that I am there and then take a paper and write on it what you wanted to tell me. Then just the very fact of formulating it clearly sometimes gives you the true picture of the situation and you can have the answer more easily. It depends, sometimes it is necessary, sometimes not, but if you are in a confusion, a kind of whirlwind, above all, if there is a vital upsurge, the fact of compelling yourself to put it on paper already quietens you, it begins the work of purification.

In fact, one should always do this, when he feels that he is caught by an impulse of some kind or other, particularly impulses of anger. If one takes as an absolute discipline, instead of acting or speaking (because speech is an action), instead of acting under the impulse, if one withdraws and then does as I said, one sits down quietly, concentrates and then looks at his anger quietly, one writes it down, when one has finished writing, it is gone—in any case, most often.

 

Ref : Questions and Answers 1955

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