The Mother
Concentration and Meditation
There is another kind of meditation which consist of being as quiet as one can be without trying to stop all thoughts, for there are thoughts which are purely mechanical and if you try to stop these you will need years, and into the bargain you will not be sure of the result; instead of that you gather together all your consciousness and remain as quiet as possible, you detach yourself from external things as though they do not interest you at all, and all of a sudden, you brighten the flame of aspiration and throw into it everything that comes to you so that the flame may rise higher and higher, higher and higher; you identify yourself with it and you go up to the extreme point of your consciousness and aspiration, thinking of nothing else – simply an aspiration which mounts and mounts and mounts, intensifying itself more and more in a constant concentration. And there I may assure you that what happens is the best that can happen. That is, it is the maximum of your possibilities which is realized when you do this….
…Do not fall into the very common error of believing that you must sit in an absolutely quiet corner where nobody passes by, where you are in a classical position and altogether immobile, in order to be able to meditate--it is not true. What is needed is to succeed in meditating under all circumstances, and I call “meditating” not emptying your head but concentrating yourself in a contemplation of the Divine; and if you keep this contemplation within you, all that you do will change its quality--not its appearance, for apparently it will be the same thing, but its quality. And life will change its quality, and you, you will feel a little different from what you were, with a peace, a certitude, an inner calm, an unchanging force, something which never gives way.
In that state it will be difficult to do you harm—the forces always try, this world is so full of adverse forces which seek to upset everything… but they succeed in a very small measure, only in the measure necessary to force you to make a new progress.
Each time you receive a blow from life, tell yourself immediately, “Ah, I have to make a progress”; then the blow becomes a blessing. Instead of tucking your head between your shoulders, you lift it up with joy and you say, “What is it I have to learn? I want to know. What is it I have to change? I want to know.” This is what you should do.
The Mother – (1878-1973)
The Mother was born in Paris as Mira Alfassa. She was a devote of Sri Aurobindo
The above was an excerpt from one of her collected works “Search for the Soul in Everyday Living”
Compiled by Wayne Bloomquist
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