The Mother on Vigilance
Vigilance ( extract from" Comentaries on the Dhammapada " by the Mother)
Vigilance means to be awake, to be on one's guard, to be sincere - never to be taken by surprise. When you want to do sadhana, at each moment of your life, there is a choice between taking a step that leads to the goal, or falling asleep or sometimes even going backwards telling yourself " oh later on, not immediately" sitting down on the way
To be vigilant is not merely to resist what pulls you down ward, but above all to be alert in order not to lose any opportunity to progress, any opportunity to overcome a weakness, to resist a temptation, an opportunity to learn somethoing, to correct something, to master something. If you are vigilant, you can do in a few days what would otherwise take years. If you are vigilant you change each circumstance of your life, each action, each movement into an occasion for coming nearer the goal.
There are two kinds of vigilance, active and passive. There is a vigilance that gives you warning if you are about to make a mistake, if you are making wrong choices, if you are being weak or allowing yourself to be tempted, and there is the acive vigilance which seeks an opportunity to progress, seeks to utilise every circumstances, to advance more quickly
There is a difference between preventing yourself from falling and advancing more quickly
And both are absolutely necessary.
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Poem by Sri Aurobindo : Evolution
Evolution
All is not finished in the Unseen's decree !
A mind beyond our mind demands our ken;
A life of unimagined harmony
Awaits, concealed, the group of unborn men
The crude beginnings of the lifeless earth
And mindless stirrings of the plant and tree
Prepared our thoughts for a godlike earth
Broadens the mould of our mortality
A might no human will or force could gain,
A knowledge seated in eternity
A joy beyond our struggle and our pain
Is this earth-hampered creature's destiny
O thou who climbedst to mind from the dull stone
Turn to the miracled summits yet unknown.
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The untiring Energy
Whirpool of unbearable bliss drown our soul in an abysmal peace.
Quiet rivulet of molton gold, burdened with the secret of a supernal life
Flow gently through our veins .
O grenerous Energy!
Join The locked lakes with the unguarded Ocean for a clandestine trade
With different lands beyond matter's range
O Force
Sweep away in thy tidal wave
The ancient wall between man and his origin
Pave the way with aureate aspiration
for the descent of the Mother Divine.
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Niranjan