Necessity for

Spiritual Perfection Is

Perfect Equality

A Compilation from the works of

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

Necessity for

Spiritual Perfection Is

Perfect Equality

© Quotations are copyright of

Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

All writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are copyright of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust and have been reproduced here with their kind permission.

© 2018 AuroPublications, Sri Aurobindo Society, Puducherry

www.aurosociety.org

Year of Publication 2018

Compilation done by Jamshed M Mavalwalla

Proof reading done by Archana Udaykumar

Cover done by Bharath S

Help in making e-book by Vivechana Saraf, Shivakumar and Uttam Mondal

Foreword

All over the world, there is a growing interest in Spirituality and Yoga.  There is a search for the true meaning and purpose of life, for deeper solutions to the problems which confront us all, and how we can contribute to the evolutionary change and progress.

In this search, more and more persons are turning to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother for guidance and enlightenment.  But in their voluminous literature, they do not know where to find the answers they are looking for.

In this regard the Mother has said,

“It is not by books that Sri Aurobindo ought to be studied but by subjects—what he has said on the Divine, on Unity, on religion, on evolution, on education, on self-perfection, on supermind, etc., etc.” (CWM 12: 206)

On another occasion she said:

“If you want to know what Sri Aurobindo has said on a given subject, you must at least read all he has written on that subject. You will then see that he seems to have said the most contradictory things. But when one has read everything and understood a little, one sees that all the contradictions complement one another and are organised and unified in an integral synthesis.” (CWM 16: 309-310)

While there are several compilations which are now available, many sincere spiritual seekers have felt the need of Comprehensive Compilations from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on specific subjects, where the contents are further organised into sub-topics, so that one can get all that one is looking for at one place.

These books are an effort to fulfill this need and thus help spiritual seekers in their journey and sadhana.  We hope these compilations will help us to get a greater mental clarity about a subject so that we can channel our efforts in the right direction. For Sri Aurobindo has written:

“It is always better to make an effort in the right direction; even if one fails the effort bears some result and is never lost.” (CWSA 29: 87)

We will be glad to get suggestions and feedback from the readers.

Vijay

Preface

Now we bring you the second and last book on Equality. By combining both the books it becomes the comprehensive compilation Equality or Samata.

The quotations in this compilation are taken from the volumes of the Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo (CWSA) and the Collected Works of the Mother (CWM), Second Edition. Each quotation is followed by the book title, volume number and the page number it has been taken from.

While the passages from Sri Aurobindo are in the original English, most of the passages from the Mother (selections from her talks and writings) are translations from the original French. We must also bear in mind that the excerpts have been taken out of their original context and that a compilation, in its very nature, is likely to have a personal and subjective approach. A sincere attempt, however, has been made to be faithful to the vision of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Those who would like to go through the fuller text are advised to go through the Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo (CWSA) and the Collected Works of the Mother (CWM), Second Edition.

The section headings and sub-headings have also been provided by the compiler to bring clarity on the selected topic. Also to emphasize certain portion in the quotations, the compiler has bold-faced some words.

I pray that this book may help the readers to understand the importance of Equality, Samata and help in practising Yoga.

Jamshed M Mavalwalla.

“The very first necessity for spiritual perfection is a perfect equality.” (CWSA 24: 698)

Contents

I—What spiritual perfection means

II—Essential and fundamental element of perfection will start from a basic equality of the soul

III—What is perfect equality or perfect samata?

IV—Why there is a need of equality in sadhana

V—How a Yogi maintains Equality

VI—How equality helps in sadhana

VII—The attitude of equality in the Integral Yoga

VIII—The role of Equality in the Integral Yoga

IX—First step to Perfect Equality is the conquest of our Emotional and Vital being

X—The Perfection of Equality of Heart

XI—The Equality of our Dynamic Being

XII—The Equality of the Thinking Mind

XIII—Equality of Physical Consciousness

XIV—The eternal Equality of Sachchidananda

XV—Equality in the Gita

XVI—The test of Equality

XVII—Shanti Chatusthaya

XVIII—What is Active or Positive Equality?

XIX—Negative samata and shanti are the necessary preparation of Positive Samata

XX — Our perfection will be greater and complete, if we have Active Equality

XXI—The Integral Yoga and Positive Equality

XXII—No supramental vibration can be transmitted except in this perfect Equality

XXIII—Short Summary

I—What spiritual perfection means

“A spiritual self-perfection can only mean a growing into oneness with the nature of divine being ...” (CWSA 24: 691)

“But for the integral Yoga perfection will mean a divine spirit and a divine nature which will admit of a divine relation and action in the world; it will mean also in its entirety a divinising of the whole nature, a rejection of all its wrong knots of being and action, but no rejection of any part of our being or of any field of our action.” (CWSA 24: 691)

“Perfection in the sense in which we use it in Yoga, means a growth out of a lower undivine into a higher divine nature.” (CWSA 24: 698)

“Mind, life, body, all the forms of our nature are the means of this growth, but they find their last perfection only by opening out to something beyond them, first, because they are not the whole of what man is, secondly, because that other something which he is, is the key of his completeness and brings a light which discovers to him the whole high and large reality of his being.” (CWSA 24: 617)

“A greater perfection can only be arrived at by a higher

power entering in and taking up the whole action of the being. The second stage of this Yoga will therefore be a persistent giving up of all the action of the nature into the hands of this greater Power, a substitution of its influence, possession and working for the personal effort, until the Divine to whom we aspire becomes the direct master of the Yoga and effects the entire spiritual and ideal conversion of the being.” (CWSA 24: 619)

“A Yoga of integral perfection regards man as a divine spiritual being involved in mind, life and body; it aims therefore at a liberation and a perfection of his divine nature. It seeks to make an inner living in the perfectly developed spiritual being his constant intrinsic living and the spiritualised action of mind, life and body only its outward human expression.” (CWSA 24: 620)

“To open oneself to the supracosmic Divine is an essential condition of this integral perfection; to unite oneself with the universal Divine is another essential condition.” (CWSA 24: 622)

“Essentially, then, this divine self-perfection is a conversion of the human into a likeness of and a fundamental oneness with the divine nature, a rapid shaping of the image of God in man and filling in of its ideal outlines.” (CWSA 24: 623)

II—Essential and fundamental element of perfection will start from a basic equality of the soul

“The approach to perfection must be therefore a large and complex movement and its results and workings will have an infinite and varied scope. We must fix in order to find a clue and method on certain essential and fundamental elements and requisites of perfection, siddhi; for if these are secured, all the rest will be found to be only their natural development or particular working. We may cast these elements into six divisions, interdependent on each other to a great extent but still in a certain way naturally successive in their order of attainment. The movement will start from a basic equality of the soul and mount to an ideal action of the Divine through our perfected being in the largeness of the Brahmic unity.” (CWSA 24: 691–692)

“The first necessity is some fundamental poise of the soul both in its essential and its natural being regarding and meeting the things, impacts and workings of Nature. This poise we shall arrive at by growing into a perfect equality, samata.” (CWSA 24: 692)

III—What is perfect equality or perfect samata?

1. In perfect samata one sees all as equal, friends and enemies and not disturbed by what men do or by what happens

“It is true also that to look upon all things and all people with a calm and clear vision, to be uninvolved and impartial in one’s judgments is a quite proper Yogic attitude. A condition of perfect samata can be established in which one sees all as equal, friends and enemies included, and is not disturbed by what men do or by what happens.” (CWSA 29: 131)

2. A perfect equality of our spirit and nature is a means by which we can move back from the troubled and ignorant outer consciousness into this inner kingdom of heaven

3. The complete fruit of the discipline of Equality is self-elevation to the Divine Nature

4. The discipline of equality demanded from us by the self-perfecting aim in Yoga

“A perfect equality of our spirit and nature is a means by which we can move back from the troubled and ignorant outer consciousness into this inner kingdom of heaven and possess the spirit’s eternal kingdoms, rajyam samrddham, of greatness, joy and peace. That self-elevation to the divine nature is the complete fruit and the whole occasion of the discipline of equality demanded from us by the self-perfecting aim in Yoga.” (CWSA 24: 699)

5. For the Supermind to be able to express itself through a terrestrial consciousness is the perfect equality that comes from spiritual identification with the Supreme

6. Everything becomes the Supreme in a perfect equality

“One could say that the constant state that is needed for the Supermind to be able to express itself through a terrestrial consciousness is the perfect equality that comes from spiritual identification with the Supreme. Everything becomes the Supreme in a perfect equality. And it is automatic—not the equality achieved by the conscious will, by intellectual effort or an understanding prior to the state; it is not that. It must be spontaneous and automatic; one should no longer respond to everything that comes from outside as if one were responding to something coming from outside. This kind of reflection and response should be replaced by a state of constant perception— which I cannot call identical because each thing necessarily calls for a special response—but free from any rebound, if one may say so.” (CWM 10: 115–116)

7. To change the whole substance of our being into substance of the self a perfect Equality and Peace of the soul is indispensable

“A perfect equality and peace of the soul is indispensable to change the whole substance of our being into substance of the self out of its present stuff of troubled mentality. It is equally indispensable if we aspire to replace our present confused and ignorant action by the self-possessed and luminous works of a free spirit governing its nature and in tune with universal being.” (CWSA 24: 699–700)

8. Even a perfect human action is impossible if we do not have Equality

“A divine action or even a perfect human action is impossible if we have not equality of spirit and an equality in the motive-forces of our nature.” (CWSA 24: 700)

9. The self-perfecting individual who seeks to be one in will with the Divine

10. The self-perfecting individual who makes his nature an instrument of the divine purpose

11. Must mould himself into an image of this Supreme Equality

“The self-perfecting individual who seeks to be one in will with the Divine and make his nature an instrument of the divine purpose, must enlarge himself out of the egoistic and partial views and motives of the human ignorance and mould himself into an image of this supreme equality.” (CWSA 24: 700)

12. Equality is the sign of unity with the Brahman, of becoming Brahman

13. Equality is the sign of growing into an undisturbed spiritual poise of being in the Infinite

“The self, spirit or Brahman is one in all and therefore one to all; it is, as is said in the Gita which has developed fully this idea of equality and indicated its experience on at least one side of equality, the equal Brahman, samam brahma; the Gita even goes so far in one passage as to identify equality and yoga, samatvam yoga ucyate [It is equality that is meant by Yoga]. That is to say, equality is the sign of unity with the Brahman, of becoming Brahman, of growing into an undisturbed spiritual poise of being in the Infinite.” (CWSA 24: 692)

14. Equality is a sign of having passed beyond the egoistic determinations of our nature

15. Of our having conquered our enslaved response to the dualities

16. Of having transcended the gunas, of our having entered into the calm and peace of liberation

17. Equality is a term of consciousness which brings the eternal tranquillity of the Infinite

“Its importance can hardly be exaggerated; for it is the sign of our having passed beyond the egoistic determinations of our nature, of our having conquered our enslaved response to the dualities, of our having transcended the shifting turmoil of the gunas, of our having entered into the calm and peace of liberation. Equality is a term of consciousness which brings into the whole of our being and nature the eternal tranquillity of the Infinite. Moreover, it is the condition of a securely and perfectly divine action; the security and largeness of the cosmic action of the Infinite is based upon and never breaks down or forfeits its eternal tranquillity. That too must be the character of the perfect spiritual action; to be equal and one to all things in spirit, understanding, mind, heart and natural consciousness,— even in the most physical consciousness, — and to make all their workings, whatever their outward adaptation to the thing to be done, always and imminuably full of the divine equality and calm must be its inmost principle. That may be said to be the passive or basic, the fundamental and receptive side of equality, but there is also an active and possessive side, an equal bliss which can only come when the peace of equality is founded and which is the beatific flower of its fullness.” (CWSA 24: 692–693)

18. Equality means another thing—to have an equal view of men and their nature and acts and the forces that move them

19. Equality helps one to see the truth by pushing away all personal feelings, judgments and all mental bias

20. For a sadhak, to surmount personal feeling and live in the calm strength of the spirit is an essential part of his progress

“Equality means another thing — to have an equal view of men and their nature and acts and the forces that move them; it helps one to see the truth about them by pushing away from the mind all personal feeling in one’s seeing and judgment and even all mental bias. Personal feeling always distorts and makes one see in men’s actions, not only the actions themselves, but things behind them which, more often than not, are not there. Misunderstanding and misjudgment which could have been avoided are the result; things of small consequence assume large proportions. I have seen that more than half of the untoward happenings of this kind in life are due to this cause. But in ordinary life personal feeling and sensitiveness are a constant part of human nature and may be needed there for self-defence, although, I think, even there, a strong, large and equal attitude towards men and things would be a much better line of defence. But, for a sadhak, to surmount them and live rather in the calm strength of the spirit is an essential part of his progress.” (CWSA 29: 130–131)

IV—Why there is a need of equality in sadhana

1. The play of cosmic forces does not always work in favour of a smooth and direct line for the sadhana

2. It often brings in upheavals, sudden turns which break the line, upsetting what had been temporarily settled and established

3. To preserve equanimity and make an opportunity of progress out of all that happens in the life and the sadhana

4. There is a higher secret Will transcendent behind the play and it is that Will which one must wait upon and have faith in

5. But you must not expect to be able always to understand its workings

6. What the mind wants is not at all always what is intended in a larger purpose

7. Not to build on outward circumstances, conditions as if they were fundamental things

“It is this play of forces that is trying to bring about your removal to Burdwan and, if it succeeds, you have not to be troubled or shaken or disappointed, but to accept and make use of all that happens for your sadhana and progress. For the play of cosmic forces, the will in the cosmos—as one might say—does not always work apparently in favour of a smooth and direct line for the work or the sadhana, it often brings in what seem to be upheavals, sudden turns which break or deflect the line, opposing or upsetting circumstances or perplexing departures from what had been temporarily settled and established. The one thing is to preserve equanimity and make an opportunity and means of progress out of all that happens in the course of the life and the sadhana. There is a higher secret Will transcendent behind the play and will of the cosmic forces—a play which is always a mixture of things favourable and things adverse— and it is that Will which one must wait upon and have faith in; but you must not expect to be able always to understand its workings. The mind wants this or that to be done, the line once taken to be maintained, but what the mind wants is not at all always what is intended in a larger purpose. One has to follow indeed a fixed central aim in the sadhana and not deviate from it, but not to build on outward circumstances, conditions etc. as if they were fundamental things.” (CWSA 28: 564–565)

8. Not to be upset by outward things as it makes no difference to the Divine Purpose in us

9. Do whatever is necessary but not exciting or upsetting yourself

“These things are small and relative—you may have a new table or you may not have a new table, neither way is of any very great importance and it makes no difference to the Divine Purpose in you. The one thing important is to increase calm and peace and the descent of the Divine Force, to grow in equality and inward light and consciousness. Outward things have to be done with a great quiet, doing whatever is necessary but not exciting or upsetting yourself about anything. It is only so that you can advance steadily and quickly. When you feel the Mother’s Force about you, the peace closely round you that is the one thing of importance— these small outward things can be settled in a hundred different ways, it does not really matter.” (CWSA 30: 230)

10. Equality is the first word of the path of works and the path of knowledge

“This purification spells an entire equality of the nervous being and the heart; equality, therefore, even as it was the first word of the path of works, so also is the first word of the path of knowledge.” (CWSA 23: 313)

V—How a Yogi maintains Equality

“As for the detachment of which you speak, it comes by attaining the poise of the Spirit, the equality of which the Gita speaks always, but also by sight, by knowledge. For instance, looking at what happened in 1914—or for that matter at all that is and has been happening in human history—the eye of the Yogin sees not only outward events and persons and causes, but the enormous forces which precipitate them into action. If the men who fought were instruments in the hands of rulers and financiers etc., these in turn were mere puppets in the clutch of these forces. When one is habituated to see the things behind, one is no longer prone to be touched by the outward aspects—or to expect any remedy from political, institutional or social changes; the only way out is through the descent of a consciousness which is not the puppet of these forces but is greater than they are and can force them either to change or disappear.” (CWSA 29: 133)

“The Yogic attitude consists in calm, detachment, equality, universality— added to this the psychic element, bhakti, love, devotion to the Divine.” (CWSA 29: 134)

“This state of emptiness and quietude and absence of reactions is regarded by Yogins as a great step in advance, especially the equality and indifference to what is said or done. For the moment it is a neutral condition only, but that it is usually at first. Afterwards it changes into peace or even into an equal Ananda undisturbed by anything that can happen.” (CWSA 29: 141)

“There are two conditions, one of Ananda, another of great calm and equality in which there is no joy or grief. If one attains the latter, afterwards a greater more permanent Ananda becomes possible.” (CWSA 29: 157)

“To keep this equanimity and absence of reactions and from that calm ground to direct the Yoga-force on things and persons (not for egoistic aims but for the work to be done) is the position of the Yogi.” (CWSA 29: 243–244)

“The Yogi arrives first at a sort of division in his being in which the inner Purusha fixed and calm looks at the perturbations of the outer man as one looks at the passions of an unreasonable child; that once fixed, he can proceed afterwards to control the outer man also. Whether he can easily control the actions depends on the temperament of his outer man, whether it is vehement, emotional and passionate or comparatively sedate and quiet. But a complete control of the outer man needs a long and arduous tapasya. It cannot be expected and even the assured inner calm cannot be expected of those who are still in a very early stage of the journey, who are still sadhaks and not Yogis.” (CWSA 31: 658)

VI—How equality helps in sadhana

1. Equality is the spiritual way of replying to life

2. Equality is the spiritual way of embracing life

3. Equality compels life to become a perfect form of action of the self and spirit

4. Equality is the first secret of the soul’s mastery of existence

5. When we have Equality in perfection, we are admitted to the very ground of the Divine Spiritual Nature

“It [the status of equality] is not mere quiescence and indifference, not a withdrawal from experience, but a superiority to the present reactions of the mind and life. It is the spiritual way of replying to life or rather of embracing it and compelling it to become a perfect form of action of the self and spirit. It is the first secret of the soul’s mastery of existence. When we have it in perfection, we are admitted to the very ground of the divine spiritual nature.”  (CWSA 24: 721)

6. Samata, equality helps the mental quietude

7. Equality helps vital, vital mind and thinking mind to fall silent

“Not to be disturbed by either joy or grief, pleasure or displeasure by what people say or do or by any outward things is called in Yoga a state of samata, equality to all things. It is of immense importance in sadhana to be able to reach this state. It helps the mental quietude and silence as well as the vital to come. It means indeed that the vital itself and the vital mind are already falling silent and becoming quiet. The thinking mind is sure to follow.” (CWSA 31: 335)

8. Complete Equality makes our adhara a firm and capable of containing full down flow of Power and Ananda

“You have to move towards a firm basis of calm and equality in the vital and physical no less than in the mental consciousness; let there be the full down flow of Power and Ananda, but into a firm adhara capable of containing it — it is a complete equality that gives that capacity and firmness.” (CWSA 29: 127–128)

9. Divine Forces are too strong for human unless there is extremely solid basis of calmness of Equality of soul

“Q: Why does the divine force upset people?

A: Because it is too strong for them. It is as though you were in the midst of a big cyclone. It happens at times that the wind is so violent that you are not able to stand—you have to lie down and wait till it blows over. Now, the divine forces are a thousand times stronger than a cyclonic wind. If you do not have in you a very wide receptivity, an extremely solid basis of calmness, of equality of soul and inner peace, they come and carry you away like a hurricane and you cannot resist them. It is the same thing with light; some people get a pain in the eyes when they look at the sun and are obliged to put on dark glasses because sunlight is too strong for them.” (CWM 4: 96)

10. A calm and equality in the mind and vital can make it impossible for the hostile forces to succeed

“There are two things that make it impossible for them [the hostile forces] to succeed even temporarily in any attack on the mind or the vital—first, an entire love, devotion and confidence that nothing can shake, secondly, a calm and equality in the vital as well as in the mind which has become the fundamental character of the inner nature. Suggestions then may still come, things go wrong outside, but the being remains invulnerable. Either of these two things is sufficient in itself—and in proportion as they grow, even the existence of the hostile forces becomes less and less of a phenomenon of the inner life—though they may still be there in the outer atmosphere.” (CWSA 31: 796)

11. To know the Mother’s love and blessings face the social difficulties with equality

“Quietly face the social difficulties with equality and cheerfulness; then you will know that my love and blessings are with you.” (CWM 13: 133)

12. The sign and proof that we are near the goal, is a perfect equality

13. Then all success and failure become marvellous gifts that the Lord in his infinite solicitude showers upon us

“But ultimately the true attitude, the sign and proof that we are near the goal, is a perfect equality which enables us to accept success and failure, fortune and misfortune, happiness and sorrow with the same tranquil joy; for all these things become marvellous gifts that the Lord in his infinite solicitude showers upon us.” (CWM 10: 59)

VII—The attitude of equality in the Integral Yoga

“The passage through sattwa is the ordinary idea of Yoga, it is the preparation and purification by the yama-niyama of Patanjali or by other means in other Yogas, e.g., saintliness in the bhakti schools, the eightfold path in Buddhism etc., etc. In our Yoga the evolution through sattwa is replaced by the cultivation of equanimity, samata, and by the psychic transformation.” (CWSA 28: 424)

“If you want to do Yoga, you must take more and more in all matters, small or great, the Yogic attitude. In our path that attitude is not one of forceful suppression, but of detachment and equality with regard to the objects of desire. ... It is only when one stands back, separates oneself from the lower vital, refusing to regard its desires and clamours as one’s own, and cultivates an entire equality and equanimity in the consciousness with respect to them that the lower vital itself becomes gradually purified and itself also calm and equal. Each wave of desire as it comes must be observed, as quietly and with as much unmoved detachment as you would observe something going on outside you, and must be allowed to pass, rejected from the consciousness, and the true movement, the true consciousness steadily put in its place.” (CWSA 31: 419)

“Every good Aurovilian should strive to free himself from all desires, all preferences and all repulsions.

Equality in the face of all circumstances is the chief aim to be attained in order to live in Auroville.” (CWM 13: 202)

“The ideal to attain is an unflinching equality of soul and conduct, a patience that never fails and, of course, the absence of any preference or desire.” (CWM 12: 359)

“The sadhak has to keep his quietude and faith and equanimity in all conditions—even when the higher consciousness and experience are not there.” (CWSA 29: 135)

“It is not enough to have that equality and silence and freedom only when you are in communion with the sky and sea. It is at all times that you must be able to receive it from above—then there will be a true foundation of the sadhana.” (CWSA 29: 135)

“Shuddhi [purification] is the most difficult part of the whole Yoga, it is the condition of all the rest, and if that is once conquered, the real conquest is accomplished. The rest becomes a comparatively easy building on an assured basis,—it may take longer or shorter, but it can be done tranquilly and steadily. To prevent the shuddhi the lower nature in you and around you will exhaust all its efforts, and even when it cannot prevent, it will try to retard. And its strongest weapon then is, when you think you have got it, suddenly to break in on you and convince you that you have not got it, that it is far away, and so arouse disappointment, grief, loss of faith, discouragement, depression and revolt, the whole army of troubles that wait upon impure Desire. When you have once found calm, peace of mind, firm faith, equality and been able to live in it for some time, then and only then you may be sure that suddhi is founded; but you must not think it will not be disturbed. It will be, so long as your heart and prana are still capable of responding to the old movements, have still any memory and habit of vibrating to the old chords. The one thing necessary when the renewed trouble comes, is to stand back in your mind and will from it, refuse it the sanction of your higher being, even when it is raging in the lower nature. As that habit of refusal fixes itself,—at first you may not be able to do it, the buddhi may be lost in the storm,—you will find that the asuddhi, even though it still returns, becomes less violent, more and more external, until it ceases to be anything more than a faint and short-lived touch from outside and finally comes no more. That is the course it has followed with me, not only with regard to this kind of disturbance, but with regard to all imperfections. You, since you have chosen to share my Yoga for mankind, must follow the same way, undergo the same disturbances.” (CWSA 36: 230)

“It is possible, when we live inwardly in the depths, to arrive at a state of vast inner equality and peace which is untouched by the reactions of the outer nature, and that is a great but incomplete liberation,—for the outer nature too has a right to deliverance.” (CWSA 21: 422)

“Equanimity and peace in all conditions in all parts of the being is the first foundation of the Yogic status.” (CWSA 29: 123)

“Loyalty, fidelity, capacity, strength of will and other qualities in the work you have in plenty — a full calm and equality not only in the inner being where it can exist already, but in the outer nervous parts is a thing you have to get completely.” (CWSA 29: 279)

“It is very good that you have had this experience; for this kind of consciousness full of equality (samata) is just the thing that has to be acquired and the very basis on which a sound Yogic consciousness full of the Mother can be built up. If it can be fixed, then most of the trouble and difficulty of sadhana disappears — all necessary changes can proceed quietly without these disturbances and upsettings which break and hamper the progress. Also in it there can grow a right and clear understanding of people and things and how to deal with them without friction which can make work and action much more easy. Once this consciousness has come, it is bound to return and increase.” (CWSA 29: 134–135)

“Through an equality gained by strong mental control [the worldly man is able to bear all kinds of difficulty]—but that is not samata, it is titiksa, the power to bear which is only a first step or a first element of samata.” (CWSA 29: 135)

“The inner spiritual progress does not depend on outer conditions so much as on the way we react to them from within—that has always been the ultimate verdict of spiritual experience. It is why we insist on taking the right attitude and persisting in it, on an inner state not dependent on outer circumstances, a state of equality and calm, if it cannot be at once of inner happiness, on going more and more within and looking from within outwards instead of living in the surface mind which is always at the mercy of the shocks and blows of life. It is only from that inner state that one can be stronger than life and its disturbing forces and hope to conquer.” (CWSA 29: 140)

“To remain quiet within, firm in the will to go through, refusing to be disturbed or discouraged by difficulties or fluctuations, that is one of the first things to be learned on the Path. To do otherwise is to encourage the instability of consciousness, the difficulty of keeping experience of which you complain. It is only if you keep quiet and steady within that the lines of experience can go on with some steadiness—though they are never without periods of interruption and fluctuation; but these, if properly treated, can then become periods of assimilation and exhaustion of difficulty rather than denials of sadhana.

A spiritual atmosphere is more important than outer conditions; if one can get that and also create one’s own spiritual air to breathe in and live in it, that is the true condition of progress.” (CWSA 29: 140)

“What is needed is always to take a calm view of the thing and a clear vision—not only from one’s own standpoint which may be eventually right and yet need modification in detail, but with a vision that sees also the standpoint of others. This broad seeing, quiet and impersonal, is needed in the full Yogic consciousness. Having it one can insist on what has to be insisted on with firmness but at the same time with a consideration and understanding of the other that removes the chance of any clash of personal feeling. Naturally if the other is unreasonable, he may still resent, but then it will be his own fault entirely and it will fall back on him only. It is here that we see the necessity of some change. Loyalty, fidelity, capacity, strength of will and other qualities in the work you have in plenty—a full calm and equality not only in the inner being where it can exist already, but in the outer nervous parts is a thing you have to get completely.” (CWSA 29: 279)

“The ideal of the Yoga is not asceticism, but to do with things or without things in the same spirit of equality and non-attachment—only in that spirit can one make a true and spiritual use of physical things and material life.” (CWSA 35: 763)

VIII—The role of Equality in the Integral Yoga

“Equality is a very important part of this Yoga ...” (CWSA 29: 134)

“This equal poise in action is especially necessary for the sadhaka of the integral Yoga. First, he must acquire that equal assent and understanding which will respond to the law of the divine action without trying to impose on it a partial will and the violent claim of a personal aspiration.”  (CWSA 24: 700)

“A wise impersonality, a quiescent equality, a universality which sees all things as the manifestations of the Divine, the one Existence, is not angry, troubled, impatient with the way of things or on the other hand excited, over-eager and precipitate, but sees that the law must be obeyed and the pace of time respected, observes and understands with sympathy the actuality of things and beings, but looks also behind the present appearance to their inner significances and forward to the unrolling of their divine possibilities, is the first thing demanded of those who would do works as the perfect instruments of the Divine.” (CWSA 24: 700–701)

“The perfected human soul must always be an instrument for the hastening of the ways of this evolution. For that a divine power acting with the royalty of the divine will in it must be in whatever degree present in the nature. But to be accomplished and permanent, steadfast in action, truly divine, it has to proceed on the basis of a spiritual equality, a calm, impersonal and equal self-identification with all beings, an understanding of all energies. The Divine acts with a mighty power in the myriad workings of the universe, but with the supporting light and force of an imperturbable oneness, freedom and peace. That must be the type of the perfected soul’s divine works. And equality is the condition of the being which makes possible this changed spirit in the action.” (CWSA 24: 701)

“The supreme divine nature is founded on equality. This affirmation is true of it whether we look on the Supreme Being as a pure silent Self and Spirit or as the divine Master of cosmic existence. The pure Self is equal, unmoved, the witness in an impartial peace of all the happenings and relations of cosmic existence. ...

The Master [of cosmic existence] ... cannot be affected or troubled by the reactions of things; if he were, he would be subject to them, not master, not free to develop them according to his sovereign will and wisdom and according to the inner truth and necessity of what is behind their relations, but obliged rather to act according to the claim of temporary accident and phenomenon. The truth of all things is in the calm of their depths, not in the shifting inconstant wave form on the surface. The supreme conscious Being in his divine knowledge and will and love governs their evolution—to our ignorance so often a cruel confusion and distraction— from these depths and is not troubled by the clamour of the surface.” (CWSA 24: 698–699)

“The divine nature does not share in our gropings and our passions; when we speak of the divine wrath or favour or of God suffering in man, we are using a human language which mistranslates the inner significance of the movement we characterise.” (CWSA 24: 699)

“We see something of the real truth of them when we rise out of the phenomenal mind into the heights of the spiritual being. For then we perceive that whether in the silence of self or in its action in the cosmos, the Divine is always Sachchidananda, an infinite existence, an infinite consciousness and self-founded power of conscious being, an infinite bliss in all his existence. We ourselves begin to dwell in an equal light, strength, joy— the psychological rendering of the divine knowledge, will and delight in self and things which are the active universal outpourings from those infinite sources.” (CWSA 24: 699)

“To be equal is to be infinite and universal, not to limit oneself, not to bind oneself down to this or that form of the mind and life and its partial preferences and desires.” (CWSA 24: 722)

“The Divine is equal to all, an impartial sustainer of his universe, who views all with equal eyes, assents to the law of developing being which he has brought out of the depths of his existence, tolerates what has to be tolerated, depresses what has to be depressed, raises what has to be raised, creates, sustains and destroys with a perfect and equal understanding of all causes and results and working out of the spiritual and pragmatic meaning of all phenomena. God does not create in obedience to any troubled passion of desire or maintain and preserve through an attachment of partial preference or destroy in a fury of wrath, disgust or aversion. The Divine deals with great and small, just and unjust, ignorant and wise as the Self of all who, deeply intimate and one with the being, leads all according to their nature and need with a perfect understanding, power and justness of proportion. But through it all he moves things according to his large aim in the cycles and draws the soul upward in the evolution through its apparent progress and retrogression towards the higher and ever higher development which is the sense of the cosmic urge.” (CWSA 24: 700)

“But even a human perfection cannot dispense with

equality as one of its chief elements and even its essential atmosphere.” (CWSA 24: 701)

“To surmount them [desire, attachments, preferential judgement and opinion, egoism] is the condition of self-rule; but of that surmounting again equality is the condition and the essence of the movement. To be quite free from all these things,—if possible, or at least to be master of and superior to them,—is equality.” (CWSA 24: 702)

“One has to acquire equality within in the consciousness and as this equality grows one can extend it or apply it to the various fields of the activity of the consciousness.” (CWSA 31: 433)

“I [The Mother] have come to this conclusion: in principle, it is the consciousness and the union with the Divine that bring rapture —this is the principle—therefore, the consciousness and the union with the Divine, whether in the world as it is or in the construction of a future world, must be the same—in principle. That is what I repeat to myself all the time: “How is it that you do not have this rapture?”

I have it—when the whole consciousness is centralised in union; at any time, in the midst of anything, with this movement of concentration of the consciousness on union, the rapture comes. But I must say that it disappears when I am working.... It is a world—a very chaotic world of work, where I act on everything around me; and necessarily, I am obliged to receive what is around me, so as to be able to act on it. I have reached a state in which all that I receive, even the things that are considered most painful, leave me absolutely calm and indifferent— “indifferent”, not an inactive indifference: without any painful reaction of any kind, absolutely neutral (gesture turned towards the Eternal), with perfect equality. But in this equality there is a precise knowledge of what is to be done, of what is to be said, of what is to be written, of what is to be decided, in short, everything that action entails. All that happens in a state of perfect neutrality, with the sense of Power at the same time: the Power flows, the Power acts, and the neutrality remains—but there is no rapture. I do not have the enthusiasm, the delight, the fullness of action.” (CWM 10: 172–173)

IX—First step to Perfect Equality is the conquest of our Emotional and Vital being

1. Desire is the impurity of the Prana, the life-principle

2. A free Prana means a life soul which fronts the contact of outward things without desire

3. And receives them with an equal response; delivered, uplifted above the duality

4. Then the life principle will be opened to a greater system of values of experience

“A perfect equality ... in the nature is a condition of the Yoga of self-perfection. The first obvious step to it will be the conquest of our emotional and vital being, for here are the sources of greatest trouble, the most rampant forces of inequality and subjection, the most insistent claim of our imperfection. The equality of these parts of our nature comes by purification and freedom. We might say that equality is the very sign of liberation. To be free from the domination of the urge of vital desire and the stormy mastery of the soul by the passions is to have a calm and equal heart and a life-principle governed by the large and even view of a universal spirit. Desire is the impurity of the Prana, the life-principle, and its chain of bondage. A free Prana means a content and satisfied life soul which fronts the contact of outward things without desire and receives them with an equal response; delivered, uplifted above the servile duality of liking and disliking, indifferent to the urgings of pleasure and pain, not excited by the pleasant, not troubled and overpowered by the unpleasant, not clinging with attachment to the touches it prefers or violently repelling those for which it has an aversion, it will be opened to a greater system of values of experience. All that comes to it from the world with menace or with solicitation, it will refer to the higher principles, to a reason and heart in touch with or changed by the light and calm joy of the spirit.” (CWSA 24: 702–703)

5. Grief, wrath, hatred, fear, inequality of love fall away from the equal heart

“A free heart is similarly a heart delivered from the gusts and storms of the affections and the passions; the assailing touch of grief, wrath, hatred, fear, inequality of love, trouble of joy, pain of sorrow fall away from the equal heart, and leave it a thing large, calm, equal, luminous, divine.” (CWSA 24: 703— 704)

6. By Equality of the heart we get away from the troubled desire soul, open the gates of this profounder being

“By equality of the heart we get away from the troubled desire soul on the surface, open the gates of this profounder being [psychic being], bring out its responses and impose their true divine values on all that solicits our emotional being. A free, happy, equal and all-embracing heart of spiritual feeling is the outcome of this perfection.” (CWSA 24: 704)

X—The Perfection of Equality of Heart

1. In the perfection of Equality of heart there is no killing of the emotional nature but a transformation

2. In the perfection of Equality of heart Love will be not destroyed, but enlarged to its widest capacity, deepened to its spiritual rapture

“In this perfection [of Equality of heart] too there is no question of a severe ascetic insensibility, an aloof spiritual indifference or a strained rugged austerity of self-suppression. This is not a killing of the emotional nature but a transformation. All that presents itself here in our outward nature in perverse or imperfect forms has a significance and utility which come out when we get back to the greater truth of divine being. Love will be not destroyed, but perfected, enlarged to its widest capacity, deepened to its spiritual rapture, the love of God, the love of man, the love of all things as ourselves and as beings and powers of the Divine; a large, universal love, not at all incapable of various relation, will replace the clamant, egoistic, self-regarding love of little joys and griefs and insistent demands afflicted with all the chequered pattern of angers and jealousies and satisfactions, rushings to unity and movements of fatigue, divorce and separation on which we now place so high a value. Grief will cease to exist, but a universal, an equal love and sympathy will take its place, not a suffering sympathy, but a power which, itself delivered, is strong to sustain, to help, to liberate. To the free spirit wrath and hatred are impossible, but not the strong Rudra energy of the Divine which can battle without hatred and destroy without wrath because all the time aware of the things it destroys as parts of itself, its own manifestations and unaltered therefore in its sympathy and understanding of those in whom are embodied these manifestations. All our emotional nature will undergo this high liberating transformation; but in order that it may do so, a perfect equality is the effective condition.” (CWSA 24: 704–705)

XI—The Equality of our Dynamic Being

1. The same equality must be brought into the rest of our dynamic being

2. We partially control all unequal impulses by reason, aesthetic sense and ethical notions

3. But the seeker will draw back from all dualities, regard them with an equal eye and arrive through Equality of the dynamic Tapas, spiritual force

4. The ordinary mental standards will be exceeded on the basis of this dynamic equality

5. The sadhaks will must look for a motive of Divine Will power guided by Divine Knowledge

“The same equality must be brought into the rest of our being. Our whole dynamic being is acting under the influence of unequal impulses, the manifestations of the lower ignorant nature. These urgings we obey or partially control or place on them the changing and modifying influence of our reason, our refining aesthetic sense and mind and regulating ethical notions. A tangled strain of right and wrong, of useful and harmful, harmonious or disordered activity is the mixed result of our endeavour, a shifting standard of human reason and unreason, virtue and vice, honour and dishonour, the noble and the ignoble, things approved and things disapproved of men, much trouble of self approbation and disapprobation or of self-righteousness and disgust, remorse, shame and moral depression. These things are no doubt very necessary at present for our spiritual evolution. But the seeker of a greater perfection will draw back from all these dualities, regard them with an equal eye and arrive through equality at an impartial and universal action of the dynamic Tapas, spiritual force, in which his own force and will are turned into pure and just instruments of a greater calm secret of divine working. The ordinary mental standards will be exceeded on the basis of this dynamic equality. The eye of his will must look beyond to a purity of divine being, a motive of divine will-power guided by divine knowledge of which his perfected nature will be the engine, yantra.” (CWSA 24: 705)

6. A perfect Equality of the Will does not respond to the lower impulses

7. But watch for a greater seeing impulsion from the Light above the mind

8. And wait for enlightenment and direction from a superior plane of vision

“A perfect equality of the will is the power which dissolves these knots of the lower impulsion to works. This equality will not respond to the lower impulses, but watch for a greater seeing impulsion from the Light above the mind, and will not judge and govern with the intellectual judgment, but wait for enlightenment and direction from a superior plane of vision. As it mounts upward to the supramental being and widens inward to the spiritual largeness, the dynamic nature will be transformed, spiritualised like the emotional and pranic, and grow into a power of the divine nature.”  (CWSA 24: 706)

9. There will be plenty of stumblings and errors and imperfections before completion of the process of transformation

10. The seeker will proceed on its way with a firm assurance and await with growing calm the vicissitudes

“There will be plenty of stumblings and errors and imperfections of adjustment of the instruments to their new working, but the increasingly equal soul will not be troubled overmuch or grieve at these things, since, delivered to the guidance of the Light and Power within self and above mind, it will proceed on its way with a firm assurance and await with growing calm the vicissitudes and completion of the process of transformation. The promise of the Divine Being in the Gita will be the anchor of its resolution, ‘Abandon all dharmas and take refuge in Me alone; I will deliver thee from all sin and evil; do not grieve.’  (CWSA 24: 706)

XII—The Equality of the Thinking Mind

1. The Equality of the thinking mind is a very important part of the perfection of the instruments in the nature

2. Our attachment to our intellectual preferences, judgments, opinions, imaginations and the insistences of our pragmatic mind, intellectual truth-mind, must go

3. The equal thought-mind will accept knowledge and ignorance both without being bound to either

4. Will await a luminous transcendence

“The equality of the thinking mind will be a part and a very important part of the perfection of the instruments in the nature. Our present attractive self-justifying attachment to our intellectual preferences, our judgments, opinions, imaginations, limiting associations of the memory which makes the basis of our mentality, to the current repetitions of our habitual mind, to the insistences of our pragmatic mind, to the limitations even of our intellectual truth-mind, must go the way of other attachments and yield to the impartiality of an equal vision. The equal thought-mind will look on knowledge and ignorance and on truth and error, those dualities created by our limited nature of consciousness and the partiality of our intellect and its little stock of reasonings and intuitions, accept them both without being bound to either twine of the skein [length of a thread] and await a luminous transcendence.” (CWSA 24: 706)

5. Mental activity in a Perfect Equality is replaced by an Intuitive Activity

“Are mental indifference and lack of curiosity a sort of mental inertia?

Usually they are due to mental inertia, unless one has obtained calm and indifference through a very intense sadhana resulting in a perfect equality for which the good and bad, the pleasant and unpleasant no longer exist. But in that case, mental activity is replaced by an intuitive activity of a much higher kind.” (CWM 12: 398)

6. The remedy of impurity of understanding lies in a perfect Equality of the mind

7. The purified understanding will refuse to be attached even to those ideas of which it is the most certain

“The remedy [of impurity of understanding] lies in a perfect equality of the mind, in the cultivation of an entire intellectual rectitude and in the perfection of mental disinterestedness. The purified understanding as it will not lend itself to any desire or craving, so will not lend itself either to any predilection or distaste for any particular idea or truth, and will refuse to be attached even to those ideas of which it is the most certain or to lay on them such an undue stress as is likely to disturb the balance of truth and depreciate the values of other elements of a complete and perfect knowledge.” (CWSA 23: 315)

8. In ignorance Equal mind will see an imprisoned knowledge, in error a truth at work

“In ignorance it will see a knowledge which is imprisoned and seeks or waits for delivery, in error a truth at work which has lost itself or got thrown by the groping mind into misleading forms. On the other side it will not hold itself bound and limited by its knowledge or forbidden by it to proceed to fresh illumination, nor lay too fierce a grasp on truth, even when using it to the full, or tyrannously chain it to its present formulations.” (CWSA 24: 706–707)

9. The objective of equal mind is a progress to the Spiritual Higher Plane Light

10. A stilling of the mental thought may be part of the discipline

11. Make the mind an equal channel of a Higher Light and Knowledge

12. There must also be a transformation of the mental substance

13. The Word has to be given a body in the conscious form of the nature

“This perfect equality of the thinking mind is indispensable because the objective of this progress is the greater light which belongs to a higher plane of spiritual cognisance. This equality is the most delicate and difficult of all, the least practised by the human mind; its perfection is impossible so long as the supramental light does not fall fully on the upward looking mentality. But an increasing will to equality in the intelligence is needed, before that light can work freely upon the mental substance. ... A stilling of the mental thought may be part of the discipline, when the object is to free the mind from its own partial workings, in order that it may become an equal channel of a higher light and knowledge; but there must also be a transformation of the mental substance; otherwise the higher light cannot assume full possession and a compelling shape for the ordered works of the divine consciousness in the human being. The silence of the Ineffable is a truth of divine being, but the Word which proceeds from that silence is also a truth, and it is this Word which has to be given a body in the conscious form of the nature.” (CWSA 24: 707)

XIII—Equality of Physical Consciousness

1. At present the necessity is to prepare the Physical Consciousness; for that a complete equality and peace

“Our object is the supramental realisation and we have to do whatever is necessary for that or towards that under the conditions of each stage. At present the necessity is to prepare the physical consciousness; for that a complete equality and peace and a complete dedication free from personal demand or desire in the physical and the lower vital parts is the thing to be established.” (CWSA 35: 320)

2. The Outer Equality is the Equality in the body, to have a physical poise, to receive forces without being troubled

“Q: What is the difference between outer equality and the equality of the soul?

“The equality of the soul is a psychological thing. It is the power to bear all happenings, good or bad, without being sad, discouraged, desperate, upset. Whatever happens, you remain serene, peaceful.

The other is the equality in the body. It is not psychological, it is something material; to have a physical poise, to receive forces without being troubled.

The two are equally necessary if one wants to progress on the path. And other things still. For example, a mental poise; such that all possible ideas, even the most contradictory, may come from all sides without one’s being troubled. One can see them and put each in its place. That is mental poise.” (CWM 5: 22–23)

3. Body Equality is perfect Immobility

“Suppose you have a pain somewhere; the instinct (the instinct of the body, the instinct of the cells) is to shrink and to seek to reject—that is the worst thing, that increases it invariably. Therefore, the first thing to teach the body is to remain immobile, to have no reaction; above all, no shrinking, not even a movement of rejection—a perfect immobility. That is bodily equality.

A perfect immobility.

After the perfect immobility comes the movement of inner aspiration (I always speak of the aspiration of the cells— I use words for what has no word, but there is no other way of expressing it), the surrender, that is to say, the spontaneous and total acceptance of the supreme Will (which one does not know).” (CWM 11: 13–14)

4. Physical nature’s normal tendency is inertia which responds only to the ordinary vital forces and not to the higher forces

5. If one has a perfect equality and peace then one can bring down the same peace with a force of the higher consciousness which can alter physical nature

“It is only by a more constant dynamic force descending into an unalterable equality and peace that the physical nature’s normal tendency can be eradicated.

The normal tendency of the physical nature is to be inert and in its inertia to respond only to the ordinary vital forces, not to the higher forces. If one has a perfect equality and peace then one can be unaffected by the spreading of the inertia and bring down into it gradually or quickly the same peace with a force of the higher consciousness which can alter it. When that is there there can be no longer the difficulty and fluctuations with a preponderance of inertia such as you are now having.” (CWSA 31: 396)

6. The physical body in a perfect equality and surrender is ready to enjoy the divine Ananda

“Ananda in the physical body: purified of all desire and all repulsion, in a perfect equality and surrender, the physical body is ready to enjoy the divine Ananda.” (CWM 14: 361)

XIV—The eternal Equality of Sachchidananda

1. The eternal Equality of Sachchidananda is the Equality in the terms of the Integral Yoga

“But, finally, all this equalisation of the nature [Equality of emotional and vital, heart and thinking mind] is a preparation for the highest spiritual equality to take possession of the whole being and make a pervading atmosphere in which the light, power and joy of the Divine can manifest itself in man amid an increasing fullness. That equality is the eternal equality of Sachchidananda. It is an equality of the infinite being which is self-existent, an equality of the eternal spirit, but it will mould into its own mould the mind, heart, will, life, physical being. It is an equality of the infinite spiritual consciousness which will contain and base the blissful flowing and satisfied waves of a divine knowledge. It is an equality of the divine Tapas which will initiate a luminous action of the divine will in all the nature. It is an equality of the divine Ananda which will found the play of a divine universal delight, universal love and an illimitable aesthesis of universal beauty. The ideal equal peace and calm of the Infinite will be the wide ether of our perfected being, but the  ideal, equal and perfect action of the Infinite through the nature working on the relations of the universe will be the untroubled out pouring of its power in our being. This is the meaning of equality in the terms of the integral Yoga.” (CWSA 24: 707–708)

XV—Equality in the Gita

1. Equality is one of the first Godward approaches in the Gita’s way of Karmayoga

“Equality, renunciation of all desire for the fruit of our works, action done as a sacrifice to the supreme Lord of our nature and of all nature,—these are the three first Godward approaches in the Gita’s way of Karmayoga.” (CWSA 23: 105)

2. The Gita aims at a turn, an attitude that will change the whole poise of the soul, the strong immobility of an immortal spirit

3. The test Gita lays down is an absolute Equality of the mind and the heart

4. The tiniest reaction is a proof that the discipline is imperfect

5. Little pebble of imperfection may throw down the whole achievement of the Yoga

“... the Gita ... aims at something absolute, unmitigated, uncompromising, a turn, an attitude that will change the whole poise of the soul. Not the mind’s control of vital impulse is its rule, but the strong immobility of an immortal spirit.

The test it lays down is an absolute equality of the mind and the heart to all results, to all reactions, to all happenings. If good fortune and ill fortune, if respect and insult, if reputation and obloquy, if victory and defeat, if pleasant event and sorrowful event leave us not only unshaken but untouched, free in the emotions, free in the nervous reactions, free in the mental view, not responding with the least disturbance or vibration in any spot of the nature, then we have the absolute liberation to which the Gita points us, but not otherwise. The tiniest reaction is a proof that the discipline is imperfect and that some part of us accepts ignorance and bondage as its law and clings still to the old nature. Our self-conquest is only partially accomplished; it is still imperfect or unreal in some stretch or part or smallest spot of the ground of our nature. And that little pebble of imperfection may throw down the whole achievement of the Yoga!”  (CWSA 23: 102–103)

6. The complete achievement of a perfect Equality is put forward as the normal status of a spiritual being

7. A perfect spiritual equality is the one true and infallible sign of the cessation of desire

“It has been best formulated in the already expressed doctrine of the Gita by which a complete renouncement of desire for the fruits as the motive of action, a complete annulment of desire itself, the complete achievement of a perfect equality are put forward as the normal status of a spiritual being. A perfect spiritual equality is the one true and infallible sign of the cessation of desire,— to be equal-souled to all things, unmoved by joy and sorrow, the pleasant and the unpleasant, success or failure, to look with an equal eye on high and low, friend and enemy, the virtuous and the sinner, to see in all beings the manifold manifestation of the One and in all things the multitudinous play or the slow masked evolution of the embodied Spirit.” (CWSA 23: 177)

8. Semblances of an Equal spirit must not be mistaken for the profound and vast spiritual Equality

“There are certain semblances [resemblances] of an equal spirit which must not be mistaken for the profound and vast spiritual equality which the Gita teaches. There is an equality of disappointed resignation, an equality of pride, an equality of hardness and indifference: all these are egoistic in their nature. Inevitably they come in the course of the sadhana, but they must be rejected or transformed into the true quietude. There is too, on a higher level, the equality of the stoic, the equality of a devout resignation or a sage detachment, the equality of a soul aloof from the world and indifferent to its doings. These too are insufficient; first approaches they can be, but they are at most early soul-phases only or imperfect mental preparations for our entry into the true and absolute self-existent wide evenness of the spirit.” (CWSA 23: 103)

9. The one thing needed for the soul-state to lead into a higher life is the fixed anchoring of the intelligence in a state of desireless Equality

“Yet it is precisely this secret for which he [Arjuna] does not ask, or at least so much of the knowledge as is necessary to lead him into a higher life, to which the divine Teacher intends to lead this disciple; ... Therefore after testing the completeness of his revolt from the ordinary standards of conduct,

he [Krishna] proceeds to tell him much that has to do with the state of the soul, but nothing of any outward rule of action. He must be equal in soul, abandon the desire of the fruits of work, rise above his intellectual notions of sin and virtue, live and act in Yoga with a mind in Samadhi, firmly fixed, that is to say, in the Divine alone. Arjuna is not satisfied: he wishes to know how the change to this state will affect the outward action of the man, what result it will have on his speech, his movements, his state, what difference it will make in this acting, living human being. Krishna persists merely in enlarging upon the ideas he has already brought forward, on the soul-state behind the action, not on the action itself. It is the fixed anchoring of the intelligence in a state of desireless equality that is the one thing needed.” (CWSA 19: 26)

10. The Gita does teach the Equality which rises above sin and virtue, beyond good and evil

11. This Equality is a part of the Brahmic consciousness

“Undoubtedly, the Gita does, like the Upanishads, teach the equality which rises above sin and virtue, beyond good and evil, but only as a part of the Brahmic consciousness and for the man who is on the path and advanced enough to fulfil the supreme rule.” (CWSA 19: 34)

12. The Gita tells us that Equality of soul and mind is Yoga

13. This equality is the foundation of the Brahman-state

“The Gita tells us that equality of soul and mind is Yoga and that this equality is the foundation of the Brahman-state, that high infinite consciousness to which the Yogin aspires.” (CWSA 13: 122)

14. The equality of the will only means for entering into the divine consciousness and living in it

“The equality of the will and the rejection of fruits are only means for entering with the mind and the heart and the understanding into the divine consciousness and living in it; and the Gita expressly says that they are to be employed as a means as long as the disciple is unable so to live or even to seek by practice the gradual development of this higher state.” (CWSA 19: 36)

15. For action to rise out of the human into the divine plane, a perfect Equality of works have to be done as a Sacrifice

“The argument of the Gita resolves itself into three great steps by which action rises out of the human into the divine plane leaving the bondage of the lower for the liberty of a higher law. First, by the renunciation of desire and a perfect equality works have to be done as a sacrifice by man as the doer, a sacrifice to a deity who is the supreme and only Self though by him not yet realised in his own being. This is the initial step.” (CWSA 19: 37–38)

16. Equality is the great stamp of the liberated soul, man in Samadhi

17. The most discernible signs of that Equality are subjective

“Arjuna, voicing the average human mind, asks for some outward, physical, practically discernible sign of this great Samadhi; how does such a man speak, how sit, how walk? No such signs can be given [for the man in Samadhi], nor does the Teacher attempt to supply them; for the only possible test of its possession is inward and that there are plenty of hostile psychological forces to apply. Equality is the great stamp of the liberated soul and of that equality even the most discernible signs are still subjective. ‘A man with mind untroubled by sorrows, who has done with desire for pleasures, from whom liking and wrath and fear have passed away, such is the sage whose understanding has become founded in stability.’ He is ‘without the triple action of the qualities of Prakriti, without the dualities, ever based in his true being, without getting or having, possessed of his self.’ For what gettings and havings has the free soul? Once we are possessed of the Self, we are in possession of all things.” (CWSA 19: 102)

18. The man in Samadhi does unattached works with Equality

“And yet he [the man in Samadhi] does not cease from work and action. ... Therefore it is not the works practised with desire by the Vedavadins, it is not the claim for the satisfaction of the restless and energetic mind by a constant activity, the claim made by the practical or the kinetic man, which is here enjoined. ‘Fixed in Yoga do thy actions, having abandoned attachment, having become equal in failure and success; for it is equality that is meant by Yoga.’” (CWSA 19: 102–103)

19. Knowledge means Equality and non-attachment to Desire

“For knowledge does not mean renunciation of works, it means equality and non-attachment to desire and the objects of sense; and it means the poise of the intelligent will in the Soul free and high-uplifted above the lower instrumentation of Prakriti and controlling the works of the mind and the senses and body in the power of self-knowledge and the pure objectless self-delight of spiritual realisation, niyatam karma [controlled action].” (CWSA 19: 109)

20. Our initial spiritual need is to find our poise of perfect peace and Equality

“... our pressing spiritual need to find our poise of perfect peace and equality by attainment to the Brahmic condition.” (CWSA 19: 134)

21. The result of the Knowledge, the Desirelessness and the Impersonality is a Perfect Equality in the Soul and the Nature

“The result of this knowledge, this desirelessness and this impersonality is a perfect equality in the soul and the nature.” (CWSA 19: 181)

{A short description of what this knowledge, this desirelessness and this impersonality is.}

a. The Knowledge

The liberated man does not do the work as others do in subjection to Nature

He is poised in the silent calm of the soul

“For by action, by works, not by inaction comes the knowledge and the release.

What then is the solution? what is that type of works by which we shall be released from the ills of life, from this doubt, this error, this grief, from this mixed, impure and baffling result even of our purest and best-intentioned acts, from these million forms of evil and suffering? No outward distinctions need be made, is the reply; no work the world needs, be shunned; ... on the contrary, all actions should be done, but from a soul in Yoga with the Divine, yuktah krtsnakarmakrt [a doer of all actions, in yoga]. ... he who lives in the freedom of the soul, not in the bondage of the modes of Nature, alone has release from works. ...  This ... hinges upon the Sankhya distinction between Purusha and Prakriti, between the free inactive soul, eternally calm, pure and unmoved in the midst of works, and ever active Nature ... This is the knowledge which the highest effort of the discriminating reason, the buddhi, gives to us, ... Therefore the liberated man is not afraid of action, he is a large and universal doer of all works, ... but poised in the silent calm of the soul, tranquilly in Yoga with the Divine. The Divine is the lord of his works, he is only their channel through the instrumentality of his nature conscious of and subject to her Lord. By the flaming intensity and purity of this knowledge all his works are burned up as in a fire and his mind remains without any stain or disfiguring mark from them, calm, silent, unperturbed, white and clean and pure. To do all in this liberating knowledge, without the personal egoism of the doer, is the first sign of the divine worker." (CWSA 19: 178–179)

2. The Desirelessness

“The second sign [of the Divine Worker] is freedom from desire; for where there is not the personal egoism of the doer, desire becomes impossible; it is starved out, sinks for want of a support, dies of inanition. ... the might of the divine will works in his active nature; but ... the inferior concept and nether will of desire is entirely banished, ... He has abandoned all attachment to the fruits of his works, and where one does not work for the fruit, but solely as an impersonal instrument of the Master of works, desire can find no place,— not even the desire to serve successfully, for the fruit is the Lord’s and determined by him and not by the personal will and effort, ... for the real doer is the Lord himself and all glory belongs to a form of his Shakti missioned in the nature and not to the limited human personality. The human mind and soul of the liberated man does nothing, na kincit karoti [does nothing]; even though through his nature he engages in action, it is the Nature, the executive Shakti, it is the conscious Goddess governed by the divine Inhabitant who does the work.

It does not follow that the work is not to be done perfectly, with success, with a right adaptation of means to ends: on the contrary a perfect working is easier to action done tranquilly in Yoga than to action done in the blindness of hopes and fears, lamed by the judgments of the stumbling reason, ... But all this is done impersonally by the action of a great universal light and power operating through the individual nature. The Karmayogin knows that the power given to him will be adapted to the fruit decreed, the divine thought behind the work equated with the work he has to do, the will in him,— which will not be wish or desire, but an impersonal drive of conscious power directed towards an aim not his own,—subtly regulated in its energy and direction by the divine wisdom. The result may be success, as the ordinary mind understands it, or it may seem to that mind to be defeat and failure; but to him it is always the success intended, not by him, but by the all-wise manipulator of action and result, because he does not seek for victory, but only for the fulfilment of the divine will and wisdom which works out its ends through apparent failure as well as and often with greater force than through apparent triumph.” (CWSA 19: 179–180)

3. The Spiritual Impersonality

“The liberated man has no personal hopes; he does not seize on things as his personal possessions; he receives what the divine Will brings him, covets nothing, is jealous of none: what comes to him he takes without repulsion and without attachment; what goes from him he allows to depart into the whirl of things without repining or grief or sense of loss. His heart and self are under perfect control; they are free from reaction and passion, they make no turbulent response to the touches of outward things. His action is indeed a purely physical action, ... for all else comes from above, is not generated on the human plane, is only a reflection of the will, knowledge, joy of the divine Purushottama. Therefore he does not by a stress on doing and its objects bring about in his mind and heart any of those reactions which we call passion and sin. For sin consists not at all in the outward deed, but in an impure reaction of the personal will, mind and heart which accompanies it or causes it; the impersonal, the spiritual is always pure, apapaviddham [un-pierced by evil, pure], and gives to all that it does its own inalienable purity. This spiritual impersonality is a third sign of the divine worker. All human souls, indeed, who have attained to a certain greatness and largeness are conscious of an impersonal Force or Love or Will and Knowledge working through them, ... But this freedom the liberated soul has attained; for he has cast his personality into the impersonal, where it is no longer his, but is taken up by the divine Person, the Purushottama, who uses all finite qualities infinitely and freely and is bound by none. He has become a soul and ceased to be a sum of natural qualities; and such appearance of personality as remains for the operations of Nature, is something unbound, large, flexible, universal; it is a free mould for the Infinite, it is a living mask of the Purushottama.” (CWSA 19: 180–181)

22. Equality is one of the sign of Divine Worker

“Equality is the fourth sign of the divine worker. He has, says the Gita, passed beyond the dualities; he is dvandvatıta [dualism-non-dualism]. We have seen that he regards with equal eyes, without any disturbance of feeling, failure and success, victory and defeat; but not only these, all dualities are in him surpassed and reconciled. The outward distinctions by which men determine their psychological attitude towards the happenings of the world, have for him only a subordinate and instrumental meaning. He does not ignore them, but he is above them. Good happening and evil happening, so all-important to the human soul subject to desire, are to the desireless divine soul equally welcome since by their mingled strand are worked out the developing forms of the eternal good. He cannot be defeated, since all for him is moving towards the divine victory in the Kurukshetra of Nature, dharmaksetre kuruksetre, the field of doings which is the field of the evolving Dharma, and every turn of the conflict has been designed and mapped by the foreseeing eye of the Master of the battle, the Lord of works and Guide of the dharma. Honour and dishonour from men cannot move him, nor their praise nor their blame; for he has a greater clear-seeing judge and another standard for his action, and his motive admits no dependence upon worldly rewards. Arjuna the Kshatriya prizes naturally honour and reputation and is right in shunning disgrace and the name of coward as worse than death; for to maintain the point of honour and the standard of courage in the world is part of his dharma: but Arjuna the liberated soul need care for none of these things, he has only to know the kartavyam karma, the work which the supreme Self demands from him, and to do that and leave the result to the Lord of his actions. He has passed even beyond that distinction of sin and virtue which is so all important to the human soul while it is struggling to minimise the hold of its egoism and lighten the heavy and violent yoke of its passions,—the liberated has risen above these struggles and is seated firmly in the purity of the witnessing and enlightened soul. Sin has fallen away from him, and not a virtue acquired and increased by good action and impaired or lost by evil action, but the inalienable and unalterable purity of a divine and selfless nature is the peak to which he has climbed and the seat upon which he is founded. There the sense of sin and the sense of virtue have no starting-point or applicability.” (CWSA 19: 181–182)

“The liberated soul ... sees simply what the supreme Self demands from him as needful for the maintenance or for the bringing forward of the evolving Dharma. He has no personal ends to serve, no personal loves and hatreds to satisfy, no rigidly fixed standard of action which opposes its rock-line to the flexible advancing march of the progress of the human race or stands up defiant against the call of the Infinite. He has no personal enemies to be conquered or slain, but sees only men who have been brought

up against him by circumstances and the will in things to help by their opposition the march of destiny. Against them he can have no wrath or hatred; for wrath and hatred are foreign to the divine nature. ... the Rakshasa’s grim lust of slaughter are impossible to his calm and peace and his all-embracing sympathy and understanding. He has no wish to injure, but on the contrary a universal friendliness and compassion, maitrah karuna eva ca: but this compassion is that of a divine soul overlooking men, embracing all other souls in himself, not the shrinking of the heart and the nerves and the flesh which is the ordinary human form of pity: nor does he attach a supreme importance to the life of the body, but looks beyond to the life of the soul and attaches to the other only an instrumental value. He will not hasten to slaughter and strife, but if war comes in the wave of the Dharma, he will accept it with a large equality and a perfect understanding and sympathy for those whose power and pleasure of domination he has to break and whose joy of triumphant life he has to destroy.” (CWSA 19: 183)

23. The modes of Nature are in its constant character perturbed and unequal

24. The transcendence of the gunas, is the unperturbed spirit’s superiority

25. Equality is the sign and also for the aspirant the test

“Traigunatıtya, transcendence of the gunas, is the unperturbed spirit’s superiority to that flux of action of the modes of Nature which is in its constant character perturbed and unequal; if it has to enter into relations with the conflicting and unequal activities of Nature, if the free soul is to allow its nature any action at all, it must show its superiority by an impartial equality towards all activities, results or happenings.

Equality is the sign and also for the aspirant the test.” (CWSA 19: 189)

26. Where there is inequality of soul, there is deviation from knowledge, loss of oneness of the Brahman

“Where there is inequality in the soul, there there is in evidence some unequal play of the modes of Nature, motion of desire, play of personal will, feeling and action, activity of joy and grief or that disturbed and disturbing delight which is not true spiritual bliss but a mental satisfaction bringing in its train inevitably a counterpart or recoil of mental dissatisfaction. Where there is inequality of soul, there there is deviation from knowledge, loss of steadfast abiding in the all-embracing and all-reconciling oneness of the Brahman and unity of things.” (CWSA 19: 189–190)

27. Equality has always been held up to admiration as the philosophic ideal and the characteristic temperament of the sages

28. The Gita takes up this philosophic ideal, but carries it far beyond into a Higher Region where we find ourselves breathing a larger and purer air

“It is the spiritual nature of the equality enjoined, high and universal in its character and comprehension, which gives its distinctive note to the teaching of the Gita in this matter. For otherwise the mere teaching of equality in itself as the most desirable status of the mind, feelings and temperament in which we rise superior to human weakness, is by no means peculiar to the Gita. Equality has always been held up to admiration as the philosophic ideal and the characteristic temperament of the sages. The Gita takes up indeed this philosophic ideal, but carries it far beyond into a higher region where we find ourselves breathing a larger and purer air. The Stoic poise, the philosophic poise of the soul are only its first and second steps of ascension out of the whirl of the passions and the tossings of desire to a serenity and bliss, not of the Gods, but of the Divine himself in his supreme self-mastery. The Stoic equality, making character its pivot, founds itself upon self-mastery by austere endurance; the happier and serener philosophic equality prefers self-mastery by knowledge, by detachment, by a high intellectual indifference seated above the disturbances to which our nature is prone, udasınavad asınah, as the Gita expresses it; there is also the religious or Christian equality which is a perpetual kneeling or a prostrate resignation and submission to the will of God. These are the three steps and means towards divine peace, heroic endurance, sage indifference, pious resignation, titiksa, udasınata, namas or nati. The Gita takes them all in its large synthetic manner and weaves them into its upward soul-movement, but it gives to each a profounder root, a larger outlook, a more universal and transcendent significance. For to each it gives the values of the spirit, its power of spiritual being beyond the strain of character, beyond the difficult poise of the understanding, beyond the stress of the emotions.” (CWSA 19: 190)

29. Gita’s first description of Equality is that of the Stoic philosopher

“The Stoic self-discipline calls desire and passion into its embrace of the wrestler and crushes them between its arms, as did old Dhritarashtra in the epic the iron image of Bhima. It endures the shock of things painful and pleasurable, the causes of the physical and mental affections of the nature, and breaks their effects to pieces; it is complete when the soul can bear all touches without being pained or attracted, excited or troubled. It seeks to make man the conqueror and king of his nature.

The Gita, making its call on the warrior nature of Arjuna, starts with this heroic movement. It calls on him to turn on the great enemy desire and slay it. Its first description of equality is that of the Stoic philosopher. ‘He whose mind is undisturbed in the midst of sorrows and amid pleasures is free from desire, from whom liking and fear and wrath have passed away, is the sage of settled understanding. Who in all things is without affection though visited by this good or that evil and neither hates nor rejoices, his intelligence sits firmly founded in wisdom.’ (CWSA 19: 195-196)

“He who can bear here in the body the velocity of wrath and desire, is the Yogin, the happy man.” (CWSA 19: 196)

“ ‘The material touches which cause heat and cold, happiness and pain, things transient which come and go, these learn to endure. For the man whom these do not trouble nor pain, the firm and wise who is equal in pleasure and suffering, makes himself apt for immortality.’ The equal souled has to bear suffering and not hate, to receive pleasure and not rejoice. Even the physical affections are to be mastered by endurance and this too is part of the Stoic discipline. Age, death, suffering, pain are not fled from, but accepted and vanquished by a high indifference. Not to flee appalled from Nature in her lower masks, but to meet and conquer her is the true instinct of the strong nature, purusarsabha, the leonine soul among men. Thus compelled, she throws aside her mask and reveals to him his true nature as the free soul, not her subject but her king and lord, svarat, samrat.” (CWSA 19: 196–197)

“The Stoic equality is justified as an element in the discipline of the Gita because it can be associated with and can help to the realisation of the free immutable Self in the mobile human being, param drstva, and to status in that new self-consciousness, esa brahmı sthitih. ‘Awakening by the understanding to the Highest which is beyond even the discerning mind, put force on the self by the self to make it firm and still, and slay this enemy who is so hard to assail, Desire.’ ” (CWSA 19: 197)

30. The Sattwic Equality

“The pure philosopher, the thinker, the born sage ... starts from the sattwic equality. He too observes the transitoriness of the material and external world and its failure to satisfy the desires or to give the true delight, but this causes in him no grief, fear or disappointment. He observes all with an eye of tranquil discernment and makes his choice without repulsion or perplexity. ‘The enjoyments born of the touches of things are causes of sorrow, they have a beginning and an end; therefore the sage, the man of awakened understanding, budhah, does not place his delight in these.’ ‘The self in him is unattached to the touches of external things; he finds his happiness in himself.’ He sees, as the Gita puts it, that he is himself his own enemy and his own friend, and therefore he takes care not to dethrone himself by casting his being into the hands of desire and passion, natmanam avasadayet, but delivers himself out of that imprisonment by his own inner power, uddhared atmanatmanam; for whoever has conquered his lower self, finds in his higher self his best friend and ally. He becomes satisfied with knowledge, master of his senses, a Yogin by sattwic equality,—for equality is Yoga, samatvam yoga ucyate,—regarding alike clod and stone and gold, tranquil and self-poised in heat and cold, suffering and happiness, honour and disgrace. He is equal in soul to friend and enemy and to neutral and indifferent, because he sees that these are transitory relations born of the changing conditions of life. ... He is equal-souled to all men, to the sinner and the saint, to the virtuous, learned and cultured Brahmin and the fallen outcaste. All these are the Gita’s descriptions of the sattwic equality, and they sum up well enough what is familiar to the world as the calm philosophic equality of the sage.” (CWSA 19: 197–198)

31. Perfect security can only be had by something higher than the sattwic quality

32. Something higher than philosopher’s intelligent self

33. But the Divine sage’s Spiritual Self which is beyond the three gunas

34. All must be consummated by a Divine Birth into the Higher Spiritual Nature

35. The Equality of the Gita is a large Synthetic Equality

36. In which all is lifted up into the integrality of the Divine Being and the Divine Nature

“Where then is the difference between this and the larger equality taught by the Gita? It lies in the difference between the intellectual and philosophic discernment and the spiritual, the Vedantic knowledge of unity on which the Gita founds its teaching. The philosopher maintains his equality by the power of the buddhi, the discerning mind; but even that by itself is a doubtful foundation. For, though master of himself on the whole by a constant attention or an acquired habit of mind, in reality he is not free from his lower nature, and it does actually assert itself in many ways and may at any moment take a violent revenge for its rejection and suppression. For, always, the play of the lower nature is a triple play, and the rajasic and tamasic qualities are ever lying in wait for the sattwic man. ‘Even the mind of the wise man who labours for perfection is carried away by the vehement insistence of the senses.’ Perfect security can only be had by resorting to something higher than the sattwic quality, something higher than the discerning mind, to the Self,—not the philosopher’s intelligent self, but the divine sage’s spiritual self which is beyond the three gunas. All must be consummated by a divine birth into the higher spiritual nature. ... but the man born to the divine birth has found the Divine not only in himself, but in all beings. He has realised his unity with all and his equality is therefore full of sympathy and oneness. He sees all as himself and is not intent on his lonely salvation; he even takes upon himself the burden of their happiness and sorrow by which he is not himself affected or subjected. The perfect sage, the Gita more than once repeats, is ever engaged with a large equality in doing good to all creatures and makes that his occupation and delight, sarvabhutahiteratah. The perfect Yogin is no solitary musing on the Self in his ivory tower of spiritual isolation, but yuktah krtsna-karma-krt, a many-sided universal worker for the good of the world, for God in the world. For he is a bhakta, a lover and devotee of the Divine, as well as a sage and a Yogin, a lover who loves God wherever he finds Him and who finds Him everywhere; and what he loves, he does not disdain to serve, nor does action carry him away from the bliss of union, since all his acts proceed from the One in him and to the One in all they are directed. The equality of the Gita is a large synthetic equality in which all is lifted up into the integrality of the divine being and the divine nature.” (CWSA 19: 198–199)

37. By a perfect Equality only can we repose our works completely in the Brahman

“The result is, says the Gita, a perfect equality to all things and all persons; and then only can we repose our works completely in the Brahman. For the Brahman is equal, samam brahma, and it is only when we have this perfect equality, samye sthitam manah, ‘seeing with an equal eye the learned and cultured Brahmin, the cow, the elephant, the dog, the outcaste’ and knowing all as one Brahman, that we can, living in that oneness, see like the Brahman our works proceeding from the nature freely without any fear of attachment, sin or bondage. Sin and stain then cannot be; for we have overcome that creation full of desire and its works and reactions which belongs to the ignorance, tair jitah sargah, and living in the supreme and divine Nature there is no longer fault or defect in our works; for these are created by the inequalities of the ignorance.” (CWSA 19: 202)

38. Whenever the Gita speaks of knowledge, it turns at once to speak of Equality which is its result

39. Whenever the Gita speaks of Equality, it turns to speak too of the knowledge which is its basis

40. The Equality the Gita enjoins does not begin and end in a static condition of the soul useful only for self-liberation

41. The Equality the Gita is always a basis of works

“Elsewhere the Gita puts it more largely, ‘Equal-visioned everywhere, he sees the Self in all existences and all existences in the Self. He who sees Me everywhere and all and each in Me, is never lost to Me nor I to him. He who has reached oneness and loves Me in all beings, that Yogin, howsoever he lives and acts, is living and acting in Me. O Arjuna, he who sees all equally everywhere as himself, whether it be happiness or suffering, I hold him to be the supreme Yogin.’ That is the old Vedantic knowledge of the Upanishads which the Gita holds up constantly before us; but it is its superiority to other later formulations of it that it turns persistently this knowledge into a great practical philosophy of divine living. Always it insists on the relation between this knowledge of oneness and Karmayoga, and therefore on the knowledge of oneness as the basis of a liberated action in the world. Whenever it [Gita] speaks of knowledge, it turns at once to speak of equality which is its result; whenever it speaks of equality, it turns to speak too of the knowledge which is its basis. The equality it enjoins does not begin and end in a static condition of the soul useful only for self-liberation; it is always a basis of works. The peace of the Brahman in the liberated soul is the foundation; the large, free, equal, worldwide action of the Lord in the liberated nature radiates the power which proceeds from that peace; these two made one synthesise divine works and God-knowledge.” (CWSA 19: 205–206)

42. Prakriti works by the inequality of her three modes, gunas

“Prakriti works by the inequality of her three modes, gunas, in perpetual collision and intermixture and mutation with each other; and by her function of ego-mind she gets the Purusha to identify himself with all this working and so creates the sense of active, mutable, temporal personality in the silent eternity of the Self.” (CWSA 19: 216)

43. In perfect Equality one finds the happiness that exists in the Self

“The Gita after speaking of the perfect equality of the Brahman-knower who has risen into the Brahman-consciousness, brahmavid brahmani sthitah, develops in nine verses that follow its idea of Brahmayoga and of Nirvana in the Brahman. ‘When the soul is no longer attached to the touches of outward things,’ it begins, ‘then one finds the happiness that exists in the Self; such a one enjoys an imperishable happiness, because his self is in Yoga, yukta, by Yoga with the Brahman.’ The non-attachment is essential, it says, in order to be free from the attacks of desire and wrath and passion, a freedom without which true happiness is not possible.” (CWSA 19: 235–236)

44. Whoever sees with Equality everything in the image of the Self, the Gita holds him to be the supreme Yogin

“But at least the things of the lower nature will be shunned and feared, the things which the Yogin has taken so much trouble to surmount? Not this either; all is embraced in the equality of the self-vision. ‘He, O Arjuna, who sees with equality everything in the image of the Self, whether it be grief or it be happiness, him I hold to be the supreme Yogin.’ ” (CWSA 19: 245)

45. We can by equality, transfer the poise of our soul from its lower immergence in Nature and draw it back into the Self

“When this Self is revealed within us, when we feel its peace and stillness, we can grow into that; we can transfer the poise of our soul from its lower immergence in Nature and draw it back into the Self. We can do this by the force of the things we have attained, calm, equality, passionless impersonality. For as we grow in these things, carry them to their fullness, subject all our nature to them, we are growing into this calm, equal, passionless, impersonal, all pervading Self. Our senses fall into that stillness and receive the touches of the world on us with a supreme tranquillity; our mind falls into stillness and becomes the calm, universal witness; our ego dissolves itself into this impersonal existence. All things we see in this self which we have become in ourself; and we see this self in all; we become one being with all beings in the spiritual basis of their existence. By doing works in this selfless tranquillity and impersonality, our works cease to be ours, cease to bind or trouble us with their reactions. Nature and her gunas weave the web of her works, but without affecting our griefless self-existent tranquillity. All is given up into that one equal and universal Brahman.” (CWSA 19: 256)

46. The Gita’s first insistent demand is on equality as this is the basis

47. On the wide foundation of calm equality, bhakti must raise the spirit towards some greatest highest perfection

48. The bhakta will be freed from the troubled agitated lower nature

49. Nor is he afflicted or troubled by the world, a soul of peace with whom all are at peace

“The Gita in a number of verses rings the changes on its first insistent demand, on equality, on desirelessness, on freedom of spirit. This is to be the base always,—and that was why so much stress was laid on it in the beginning. And in that equality bhakti, the love and adoration of the Purushottama must rear [raise] the spirit towards some greatest highest perfection of which this calm equality will be the wide foundation. Several formulas of this fundamental equal consciousness are given here. First, an absence of egoism, of I ness and my-ness, nirmamo nirahankarah. The bhakta of the Purushottama is one who has a universal heart and mind which has broken down all the narrow walls of the ego. A universal love dwells in his heart, a universal compassion flows from it like an encompassing sea. He will have friendship and pity for all beings and hate for no living thing: for he is patient, longsuffering, enduring, a well of forgiveness. A desireless content is his, a tranquil equality to pleasure and pain, suffering and happiness, the steadfast control of self and the firm unshakable will and resolution of the Yogin and a love and devotion which gives up the whole mind and reason to the Lord, to the Master of his consciousness and knowledge. Or, simply, he will be one who is freed from the troubled agitated lower nature and from its waves of joy and fear and anxiety and resentment and desire, a spirit of calm by whom the world is not afflicted or troubled, nor is he afflicted or troubled by the world, a soul of peace with whom all are at peace.” (CWSA 19: 403–404)

50. Equality is the perfect foundation which is demanded by the Gita for the great liberation

“Equality, desirelessness and freedom from the lower egoistic nature and its claims are always the one perfect foundation demanded by the Gita for the great liberation. There is to the end an emphatic repetition of its first fundamental teaching and original desideratum, the calm soul of knowledge that sees the one self in all things, the tranquil egoless equality that results from this knowledge, the desireless action offered in that equality to the Master of works, the surrender of the whole mental nature of man into the hands of the mightier indwelling spirit. And the crown of this equality is love founded on knowledge, fulfilled in instrumental action, extended to all things and beings, a vast absorbing and all containing love for the divine Self who is Creator and Master of the universe, suhrdam sarva-bhutanam sarva-loka-mahesvaram.” (CWSA 19: 405)

51. The signs of a man who is above the three gunas is Equality of which Krishna have constantly spoken

52. Inwardly he regards happiness and suffering alike, gold and mud and stone as of equal value

53. To him the pleasant and the unpleasant, praise and blame, honour and insult, friends and enemies are equal things

54. He is steadfast in a wise inner calm and quietude

55. Sattwa, rajas or tamas may rise or cease in his outer mentality

56. He has seated himself in the conscious light of another principle than the nature of the gunas

57. That greater consciousness remains steadfast in him

58. From that height he sees that action of gunas and their storm and calm are not himself but only a movement of Prakriti

59. His self is immovable above, this is the impersonality of the Brahmic status

“But what, asks Arjuna, are the signs of such a man, what his action and how is he said even in action to be above the three gunas? The sign, says Krishna, is that equality of which I have so constantly spoken; the sign is that inwardly he regards happiness and suffering alike, gold and mud and stone as of equal value and that to him the pleasant and the unpleasant, praise and blame, honour and insult, the faction of his friends and the faction of his enemies are equal things. He is steadfast in a wise imperturbable and immutable inner calm and quietude.  He initiates no action, but leaves all works to be done by the gunas of Nature. Sattwa, rajas or tamas may rise or cease in his outer mentality and his physical movements with their results of enlightenment, of impulsion to works or of inaction and the clouding over of the mental and nervous being, but he does not rejoice when this comes or that ceases, nor on the other hand does he abhor or shrink from the operation or the cessation of these things. He has seated himself in the conscious light of another principle than the nature of the gunas and that greater consciousness remains steadfast in him, above these powers and unshaken by their motions like the sun above clouds to one who has risen into a higher atmosphere. He from that height sees that it is the gunas that are in process of action and that their storm and calm are not himself but only a movement of Prakriti; his self is immovable above and his spirit does not participate in that shifting mutability of things unstable. This is the impersonality of the Brahmic status; for that higher principle, that greater wide high-seated consciousness, kutastha, is the immutable Brahman.” (CWSA 19: 432–433)

60. To ascend into the divine nature, one must first fix oneself in a perfect Spiritual Equality

“To ascend into the divine nature, we have been told, one must first fix oneself in a perfect spiritual equality and rise above the lower nature of the three gunas. Thus transcending the lower Prakriti we fix ourselves in the impersonality, the imperturbable superiority to all action, the purity from all definition and limitation by quality which is one side of the manifested nature of the Purushottama, his manifestation as the eternity and unity of the self, the Akshara.” (CWSA 19: 442)

61. Dispassionate equality is a heaven of impersonal calm, an egoless feeling

“The first requisite is to shake the wings of the soul free from desire and passion and troubling emotion and all this perturbed and distorting atmosphere of human mind and arrive into an ether of dispassionate equality, a heaven of impersonal calm, an egoless feeling and vision of things.” (CWSA 19: 453)

62. Surrender cannot be truly done so long as there is inequality

63. In perfect equality when surrender to the Highest is done then the divine Will determines

64. And the divine Power executes freely all works in the purity and safety of your transmuted nature

“Offer up your will to him and make it one with his eternal will: surrender all your actions in the silence of your self and spirit to the transcendent Master of your nature. This cannot be really done or done perfectly so long as there is any ego sense in you or any mental claim or vital clamour. Action done in the least degree for the sake of the ego or tinged with the desire and will of the ego is not a perfect sacrifice. Nor can this great thing be well and truly done so long as there is inequality anywhere or any stamp of ignorant shrinking and preference. But when there is a perfect equality to all works, results, things and persons, a surrender to the Highest and not to desire or ego, then the divine Will determines without stumbling or deflection and the divine Power executes freely without any nether interference or perverting reaction all works in the purity and safety of your transmuted nature.” (CWSA 19: 587)

65. The work done in a perfect equality and an unmoved calm and peace uplifts your sacrifice [surrender]

66. At its highest this surrender can be the expression of a calm and glad submission in active oneness

“But the work done by you must be free and desireless; work done without desire creates no reaction and imposes no bondage. Done in a perfect equality and an unmoved calm and peace, but without any divine passion, it is at first the fine yoke of a spiritual obligation, kartavyam karma [the work we have to do], then the uplifting of a divine sacrifice; at its highest it can be the expression of a calm and glad acquiescence in active oneness.” (CWSA 19: 589)

XVI—The test of Equality

“There can be no firm foundation in sadhana without equality, samata. Whatever the unpleasantness of circumstances, however disagreeable the conduct of others, you must learn to receive them with a perfect calm and without any disturbing reaction. These things are the test of equality. It is easy to be calm and equal when things go well and people and circumstances are pleasant; it is when they are the opposite that the completeness of the calm, peace, equality can be tested, reinforced, made perfect.” (CWSA 29: 129)

“Physical troubles always come as lessons to teach equality and to reveal what in us is pure and luminous enough to remain unaffected. It is in equality that one finds the remedy.

An important point: equality does not mean indifference.” (CWM 15: 138)

“Equality is the chief support of the true spiritual consciousness and it is this from which the sadhak deviates when he allows a vital movement to carry him away in feeling or speech or action. Equality is not the same thing as forbearance,—though undoubtedly a settled equality immensely extends, even illimitably, a man’s power of endurance and forbearance.” (CWSA 29: 130)

[Written by Sri Aurobindo to his secretary, who replied to the enquirer]

“You can explain to X that the death of his nephew had nothing  to do with their [his family members’] obscurities and imperfections— it was part of his own Karma—each person has his own destiny and follows its line; to be in a certain family and with certain relations is only a temporary incident in its course. The sadhak should be free from these attachments and regard these happenings as ordeals to be passed through with equality and faith in the Divine—doing his best for those who are in his charge but not disturbed by results.” (CWSA 28: 526–527)

“I am glad of your resolution. The greater the difficulties that rise in the work the more one can profit by them in deepening the equality, if one takes it in the right spirit. You must also keep yourself open to receive the help towards that, for the help will always be coming from the Mother for the change of the nature.” (CWSA 32: 420)

“I don’t think that one can ever smile too much. Someone who knows how to smile in all circumstances is very close to true equality of soul.” (CWM 14: 177)

XVII—Shanti Chatusthaya

Samata, Shanti, Sukha, Hasya

“Shanti Chatusthaya

Samata, Shanti, Sukha, Hasya (Atmaprasada)” (CWSA 10: 24)

“Shanti

Only when samata is accomplished, can shanti be perfect in the system. If there is the least disturbance or trouble in the mentality, we may be perfectly sure that there is a disturbance or defect in the samata. For the mind of man is complex and even when in the buddhi we have fixed ourselves entirely in udasinata or nati, there may be revolts, uneasinesses, repinings in other parts. The buddhi, the manas, the heart, the nerves (prana), the very bodily case must be subjected to the law of samata.

Shanti may be either a vast passive calm based on udasinata or a vast joyous calm based on nati. The former is apt to associate itself with a tendency to inaction and it is therefore in the latter that our Yoga must culminate.” (CWSA 10: 5)

“Sukha

Sukham is the complete relief & release from duhkha, from vishada, which comes by the fulfilment of samata and shanti. The perfected Yogin has never in himself any touch of sorrow, any tendency of depression, cloud or internal repining and weariness, but is always full of a sattwic light and ease.” (CWSA 10: 5)

“Hasya

Hasyam is the active side of sukham; it consists in an active internal state of gladness and cheerfulness which no adverse experience mental or physical can trouble. Its perfection is God’s stamp and seal on the siddhi of the samata. It is in our internal being the image of the smile of Srikrishna playing, balavat, as the eternal balaka and kumara in the garden of the world.” (CWSA 10: 5–6)

A sadhaka must have four things equality, a firm peace, a positive inner spiritual happiness and a clear joy and laughter of the soul

“The first business of the sadhaka is to see whether he has the perfect equality, how far he has gone in this direction or else where is the flaw, and to exercise steadily his will on his nature or invite the will of the Purusha to get rid of the defect and its causes. There are four things that he must have; first, equality in the most concrete practical sense of the word, samata, freedom from mental, vital, physical preferences, an even acceptance of all God’s workings within and around him; secondly, a firm peace and absence of all disturbance and trouble, santi; thirdly, a positive inner spiritual happiness and spiritual ease of the natural being which nothing can lessen, sukham; fourthly, a clear joy and laughter of the soul embracing life and existence.” (CWSA 24: 721–722)

XVIII—What is Active or Positive Equality?

“... the other [Active Equality] will liberate us into the full being and power of the higher nature and admit us to the equal poise and universality of a divine and infinite knowledge, will of action, Ananda.” (CWSA 24: 709)

“The second is an active, a positive equality which accepts the phenomena of existence, but only as the manifestation of the one divine being and with an equal response to them which comes from the divine nature in us and transforms them into its hidden values.” (CWSA 24: 709)

“The second [Active Equality] lives in that peace, but also in the Ananda of the Divine and imposes on the life of the soul in nature the signs of the divine knowledge, power and bliss of being. It is this double orientation united by the common principle which will determine the movement of equality in the integral Yoga.” (CWSA 24: 709)

Active Samata: “... samata in reaction to them [things of the outward world].” (CWSA 10: 3)

(2) Active [Samata]

It is this universal or sama ananda in all experiences which constitutes active samata, and it has three parts or stages,

...

Rasah, pritir anandah [iti sarvanandah]

“Rasa is the appreciative perception of that guna, that ´aswada, taste and quality which the Ishwara of the lila perceives in each different object of experience (vishaya) and for the enjoyment of which He creates it in the lila. Pritih is the pleasure of the mind in all rasa, pleasant or unpleasant, sweet or bitter. Ananda is the divine bhoga superior to all mental pleasure with which God enjoys the rasa; in ananda the opposition of the dualities entirely ceases.” (CWSA 10: 5)

XIX—Negative samata and shanti are the necessary preparation of Positive Samata

“Negative samata & shanti are the necessary preparation of positive samata and ananda. Without this foundation ananda is always liable to be uncertain in its duration & imperfect in its even fullness. Therefore all these things endurance of all contacts, indifference to all dualities, submission to all movements of the divine Will, perfect inner peace and tranquillity are the first step in perfection.” (CWSA 10: 28)

“Equality, not indifference is the basis. Equal endurance, impartial indifference, calm submission to the causes of joy and grief without any reaction of either grief or joy are the preparation and negative basis of equality; but equality is not fulfilled till it takes its positive form of love and delight. The sense-mind must find the equal rasa of the All-Beautiful, the heart the equal love and Ananda for all, the psychic Prana the enjoyment of this rasa, love and Ananda. This, however, is the positive perfection that comes by liberation; ...” (CWSA 23: 354)

“We cease also to judge other men and things by their outward appearances and are delivered from hostile and contradictory ideas and emotions; for it is the soul that we see, the Divine that we seek and find in every thing and creature, and the rest has only a secondary value to us in a scheme of relations which exist now for us only as self-expressions of the Divine and not as having any absolute value in themselves. So too no event can disturb us, since the distinction of happy and unhappy, beneficent and maleficent happenings loses its force, and all is seen in its divine value and its divine purpose. Thus we arrive at a perfect liberation and an infinite equality. It is this consummation of which the Upanishad speaks when it says ‘He in whom the self has become all existences, how shall he have delusion, whence shall he have grief who knows entirely and sees in all things oneness.’ ” (CWSA 23: 414)

XX — Our perfection will be greater and complete, if we have Active Equality

“But it is evident that our perfection will be greater and more embracingly complete, if we can have a more active equality which will enable us not only to draw back from or confront the world in a detached and separated calm, but to return upon it and possess it in the power of the calm and equal Spirit. This is possible because the world, Nature, action are not in fact a quite separate thing, but a manifestation of the Self, the All-Soul, the Divine. The reactions of the normal mind are a degradation of the divine values which would but for this degradation make this truth evident to us,—a falsification, an ignorance which alters their workings, an ignorance which starts from the involution of the Self in a blind material nescience. Once we return to the full consciousness of Self, of God, we can then put a true divine value on things and receive and act on them with the calm, joy, knowledge, seeing will of the Spirit. When we begin to do that, then the soul begins to have an equal joy in the universe, an equal will dealing with all energies, an equal knowledge which takes possession of the spiritual truth behind all the phenomena of this divine manifestation. It possesses the world as the Divine possesses it, in a fullness of the infinite light, power and Ananda.” (CWSA 24: 714–715)

“All this existence can therefore be approached by a Yoga of positive and active in place of the negative and passive equality. This requires, first, a new knowledge which is the knowledge of unity,—to see all things as oneself and to see all things in God and God in all things. There is then a will of equal acceptance of all phenomena, all events, all happenings, all persons and forces as masks of the Self, movements of the one energy, results of the one power in action, ruled by the one divine wisdom; and on the foundation of this will of greater knowledge there grows a strength to meet everything with an untroubled soul and mind. There must be an identification of myself with the self of the universe, a vision and a feeling of oneness with all creatures, a perception of all forces and energies and results as the movement of this energy of my self and therefore intimately my own; not, obviously, of my ego-self which must be silenced, eliminated, cast away,—otherwise this perfection cannot come, —but of a greater impersonal or universal self with which I am now one. For my personality is now only one centre of action of that universal self, but a centre intimately in relation and unison with all other personalities and also with all those other things which are to us only impersonal objects and forces: but in fact they also are powers of the one impersonal Person (Purusha), God, Self and Spirit. My individuality is his and is no longer a thing incompatible with or separated from universal being; it is itself universalised, a knower of the universal Ananda and one with and a lover of all that it knows, acts on and enjoys. For to the equal knowledge of the universe and equal will of acceptance of the universe will be added an equal delight in all the cosmic manifestation of the Divine.” (CWSA 24: 715)

“Here too we may describe three results or powers of the method. First, we develop this power of equal acceptance in the spirit and in the higher reason and will which respond to the spiritual knowledge. But also we find that though the nature can be induced to take this general attitude, there is yet a struggle between that higher reason and will and the lower mental being which clings to the old egoistic way of seeing the world and reacting to its impacts. Then we find that these two, though at first confused, mingled together, alternating, acting on each other, striving for possession, can be divided, the higher spiritual disengaged from the lower mental nature.”  (CWSA 24: 715–716)

“But in this stage, while the mind is still subject to reactions of grief, trouble, an inferior joy and pleasure, there is an increased difficulty which does not act to the same extent in a more sharply individualised Yoga. For not only does the mind feel its own troubles and difficulties, but it shares in the joys and griefs of others, vibrates to them in a poignant sympathy, feels their impacts with a subtle sensitiveness, makes them its own; not only so, but the difficulties of others are added to our own and the forces which oppose the perfection act with a greater persistence, because they feel this movement to be an attack upon and an attempt to conquer their universal kingdom and not merely the escape of an isolated soul from their empire.” (CWSA 24: 716)

“But finally, we find too that there comes a power to surmount these difficulties; the higher reason and will impose themselves on the lower mind, which sensibly changes into the vast types of the spiritual nature; it takes even a delight in feeling, meeting and surmounting all troubles, obstacles and difficulties until they are eliminated by its own transformation. Then the whole being lives in a final power, the universal calm and joy, the seeing delight and will of the Spirit in itself and its manifestation. (CWSA 24: 716)

“To see how this positive method works, we may note very briefly its principle in the three great powers of knowledge, will and feeling. All emotion, feeling, sensation is a way of the soul meeting and putting effective values on the manifestations of the Self in nature. But what the self feels is a universal delight, Ananda. The soul in the lower mind on the contrary gives it, as we have seen, three varying values of pain, pleasure and neutral indifference, which tone by gradations of less and more into each   other, and this gradation depends on the power of the individualized consciousness to meet, sense, assimilate, equate, master all that comes in on it from all of the greater self which it has by separative individualisation put outside of it and made as if not self to its experience. But all the time, because of the greater Self within us, there is a secret soul which takes delight in all these things and draws strength from and grows by all that touches it, profits as much by adverse as by favourable experience.” (CWSA 24: 716–717)

“This can make itself felt by the outer desire soul, and that in fact is why we have a delight in existing and can even take a certain kind of pleasure in struggle, suffering and the harsher colours of existence. But to get the universal Ananda all our instruments must learn to take not any partial or perverse, but the essential joy of all things. In all things there is a principle of Ananda, which the understanding can seize on and the aesthesis feel as the taste of delight in them, their rasa [essence]; but ordinarily they put upon them instead arbitrary, unequal and contrary values: they have to be led to perceive things in the light of the spirit and to transform these provisional values into the real, the equal and essential, the spiritual rasa.”  (CWSA 24: 717)

The life-principle is there to give this seizing of the principle of delight, rasa-grahana, the form of a strong possessing enjoyment, bhoga, which makes the whole life-being vibrate with it and accept and rejoice in it; but ordinarily it is not, owing to desire, equal to its task, but turns it into the three lower forms,—pain and pleasure, sukha-bhoga duhkha-bhoga, and that rejection of both which we call insensibility or indifference. The prana or vital being has to be liberated from desire and its inequalities and to accept and turn into pure enjoyment the rasa which the understanding and aesthesis perceive. Then there is no farther obstacle in the instruments to the third step by which all is changed into the full and pure ecstasy of the spiritual Ananda.” (CWSA 24: 717)

“In the matter of knowledge, there are again three reactions of the mind to things, ignorance, error and true knowledge. The positive equality will accept all three of them to start with as movements of a self-manifestation which evolves out of ignorance through the partial or distorted knowledge which is the cause of error to true knowledge. It will deal with the ignorance of the mind, as what it is psychologically, a clouded, veiled or wrapped-up state of the substance of consciousness in which the knowledge of the all-knowing Self is hidden as if in a dark sheath; it will dwell on it by the mind and by the aid of related truths already known, by the intelligence or by an intuitive concentration deliver the knowledge out of the veil of the ignorance. It will not attach itself only to the known or try to force all into its little frame, but will dwell on the known and the unknown with an equal mind open to all possibility.” (CWSA 24: 717–718)

“So too it will deal with error; it will accept the tangled skein of truth and error, but attach itself to no opinion, rather seeking for the element of truth behind all opinions, the knowledge concealed within the error,—for all error is a disfiguration of some misunderstood fragments of truth and draws its vitality from that and not from its misapprehension; it will accept, but not limit itself even by ascertained truths, but will always be ready for new knowledge and seek for a more and more integral, a more and more extended, reconciling, unifying wisdom. This can only come in its fullness by rising to the ideal supermind, and therefore the equal seeker of truth will not be attached to the intellect and its workings or think that all ends there, but be prepared to rise beyond, accepting each stage of ascent and the contributions of each power of his being, but only to lift them into a higher truth. He must accept everything, but cling to nothing, be repelled by nothing however imperfect or however subversive of fixed notions, but also allow nothing to lay hold on him to the detriment of the free working of the Truth-Spirit. This equality of the intelligence is an essential condition for rising to the higher supramental and spiritual knowledge.” (CWSA 24: 718)

“The will in us, because it is the most generally forceful power of our being,—there is a will of knowledge, a will of life, a will of emotion, a will acting in every part of our nature, —takes many forms and returns various reactions to things, such as incapacity, limitation of power, mastery, or right will, wrong or perverted will, neutral volition,—in the ethical mind virtue, sin and non-ethical volition,—and others of the kind.” (CWSA 24: 718)

“These too the positive equality accepts as a tangle of provisional values from which it must start, but which it must transform into universal mastery, into the will of the Truth and universal Right, into the freedom of the divine Will in action. The equal will need not feel remorse, sorrow or discouragement over its stumblings; if these reactions occur in the habitual mentality, it will only see how far they indicate an imperfection and the thing to be corrected,—for they are not always just indicators, —and so get beyond them to a calm and equal guidance. It will see that these stumblings themselves are necessary to experience and in the end steps towards the goal. Behind and within all that occurs in ourselves and in the world, it will look for the divine meaning and the divine guidance; it will look beyond imposed limitations to the voluntary self-limitation of the universal Power by which it regulates its steps and gradations,—imposed on our ignorance, self-imposed in the divine knowledge,—and go beyond to unity with the illimitable power of the Divine. All energies and actions it will see as forces proceeding from the one Existence and their perversions as imperfections, inevitable in the developing movement, of powers that were needed for that movement; it will therefore have charity for all imperfections, even while pressing steadily towards a universal perfection. This equality will open the nature to the guidance of the divine and universal Will and make it ready for that supramental action in which the power of the soul in us is luminously full of and one with the power of the supreme Spirit.” (CWSA 24: 719)

XXI—The Integral Yoga and Positive Equality

1. The Integral Yoga will make use of both the passive and the active methods

2. The Integral Yoga will go beyond the method of endurance, in which endurance will no longer be needed

3. Since the self will then be in a calm and powerful spontaneous possession of the universal energy

“The integral Yoga will make use of both the passive and the active methods according to the need of the nature and the guidance of the inner spirit, the Antaryamin. It will not limit itself by the passive way, for that would lead only to some individual quietistic salvation or negation of an active and universal spiritual being which would be inconsistent with the totality of its aim. It will use the method of endurance, but not stop short with a detached strength and serenity, but move rather to a positive strength and mastery, in which endurance will no longer be needed, since the self will then be in a calm and powerful spontaneous possession of the universal energy and capable of determining easily and happily all its reactions in the oneness and the Ananda.” (CWSA 24: 719–720)

4. The integral Yoga will use the method of impartial indifference

5. And move towards a high-seated impartial acceptance of life strong to transform all experience into the greater values of the equal spirit

“It will use the method of impartial indifference, but not end in an aloof indifference to all things, but rather move towards a high-seated impartial acceptance of life strong to transform all experience into the greater values of the equal spirit. It will use too temporarily resignation and submission, but by the full surrender of its personal being to the Divine it will attain to the all-possessing Ananda in which there is no need of resignation, to the perfect harmony with the universal which is not merely an acquiescence, but an embracing oneness, to the perfect instrumentality and subjection of the natural self to the Divine by which the Divine also is possessed by the individual spirit.” (CWSA 24: 720)

6. The integral Yoga will use fully the positive method and turn existence into a field only of the perfected individual knowledge, power and Ananda

7. It will have the oneness by which it can live in the existence of others and helping force in the movement towards the same perfection

8. It will live for the Divine, not shunning world-existence and equally one with the Divine in all his planes

“It will use fully the positive method, but will go beyond any individual acceptance of things which would have the effect of turning existence into a field only of the perfected individual knowledge, power and Ananda. That it will have, but also it will have the oneness by which it can live in the existence of others for their sake and not only for its own and for their assistance and as one of their means, an associated and helping force in the movement towards the same perfection. It will live for the Divine, not shunning world-existence, not attached to the earth or the heavens, not attached either to a supracosmic liberation, but equally one with the Divine in all his planes and able to live in him equally in the Self and in the manifestation.” (CWSA 24: 720)

9. The foundation of Positive Samata is knowledge which perceives the whole universe as a perception of one Being that manifests itself in multitudinous forms

10. This One Self of is my Self as well as the self of all others and all things

11. This Self is again the Lord of the Cosmos

12. The manifestation is a Lila or play of the Lord who is in His being all delight

13. Therefore the play is also a play of delight

Positive Samata.

“On the basis of Nati we proceed to the positive Samata, ie to say, to Sama Ananda. Its foundation is the Atmajnana (knowledge of the Self) or Brahmajnana [knowledge of the Brahman] by which we perceive the whole universe as a perception of one Being that manifests itself in multitudinous forms and activities. This One is therefore the one Self of all beings, my Self as well as the self of all others, friend and enemy, saint and sinner, man, bird and beast, tree & stone, and all things in the manifestation are the forms and activities of my Self. Moreover, this Self is again the Lord of the Cosmos, the Purushottama, the divine Vishnu, Shiva or Krishna, of whom every individual soul is a conscious centre, aware of its unity with Him in being and also of its difference in the universe; and the manifestation is a Lila or play of the Lord who is in His being all delight; the play, too, therefore, is not only a play of Existence and Consciousness, but also a play of delight. It is the dualities born of ego-sense in the heart, mind & body which creates grief and pain.” (CWSA10: 28)

14. We have to unite with this Self and with all things in Him, viewing them as our self, in order to get rid of pain and enjoy the divine Ananda

15. We should accept without revolt the Lila equally and play of the all-Blissful Lord

16. Though we are not attached, we must learn to take delight in all things even as the Lord takes delight in them

“We have to unite ourselves with this Self, Lord & One & with all things in Him, viewing them as our self, in order to get rid of pain & enjoy the divine Ananda. But, first, it is necessary that we should accept without revolt the Lila equally in all its details & happenings. This comes by Nati. Titiksha is the attitude of equal acceptance by the sense-mind & body, udasinata the attitude of equal acceptance by mind & heart, Nati the attitude of equal acceptance by the soul. The soul accepts all things as the play of the all-Blissful Lord, the Will of the supreme self and Ishwara. It accepts action also & the results of action, without being attached to them. But, though not attached, it must learn to take delight in all things even as the Lord takes delight in them.” (CWSA10: 28–29)

17. The first delight is that of the Sakshi or Witness who watches the whole action of the universe and his own action like watching a play

18. Sakshi takes the rasa [divine Delight] of the whole thing by the intellect, the sense and the aesthetic faculties

“The first delight is that of the Sakshi or Witness, who looking upon the whole action of the universe & even his own action like one who is watching a play or a drama, takes the rasa or taste of the whole thing by the intellect, the sense and the aesthetic faculties. All things, all events are the manifestation of certain gunas or qualities in universal Being; God is Ananta guna, Infinite Qualities. The rose is a manifestation of form, colour, odour & other less obvious qualities, each stamped with a particular form of the rasa, divine Delight.” (CWSA 10: 29)

19. The knowledge behind the idea that there should be equality towards all

“And since all things are the one Self in its manifestation, we shall have equality of soul towards the ugly and the beautiful, the maimed and the perfect, the noble and the vulgar, the pleasant and the unpleasant, the good and the evil. Here also there will be no hatred, scorn and repulsion, but instead the equal eye that sees all things in their real character and their appointed place. For we shall know that all things express or disguise, develop or distort, as best they can or with whatever defect they must, under the circumstances intended for them, in the way possible to the immediate status or function or evolution of their nature, some truth or fact, some energy or potential of the Divine necessary by its presence in the progressive manifestation both to the whole of the present sum of things and for the perfection of the ultimate result. That truth is what we must seek and discover behind the transitory expression; undeterred by appearances, by the deficiencies or the disfigurements of the expression, we can then worship the Divine for ever unsullied, pure, beautiful and perfect behind his masks. All indeed has to be changed, not ugliness accepted but divine beauty, not imperfection taken as our resting-place but perfection striven after, the supreme good made the universal aim and not evil. But what we do has to be done with a spiritual understanding and knowledge, and it is a divine good, beauty, perfection, pleasure that has to be followed after, not the human standards of these things. If we have not equality, it is a sign that we are still pursued by the Ignorance, we shall truly understand nothing and it is more than likely that we shall destroy the old imperfection only to create another: for we are substituting the appreciations of our human mind and desire-soul for the divine values.” (CWSA 23: 223–224)

20. Now equality of mind means universality

21. The equality is a fundamental oneness of attitude to all persons and all things and happenings because of the perception of all as the One

“Now equality of mind means universality; for without universality of soul there may be a state of indifference or an impartial self-control or a well-governed equality of temperament, but these are not the thing that is meant. The equality spoken of is not indifference or impartiality or equability, but a fundamental oneness of attitude to all persons and all things and happenings because of the perception of all as the One.” (CWSA 13: 122)

22. Not equal-souled to all things, happenings and creatures, we cannot see spiritually, cannot know divinely, cannot feel divinely towards others

“For then we get back to our true self and become the spirit; in the spirit we are above the impulsion of Nature, superior to her modes and forces. Attaining to a perfect equality in the soul, mind and heart, we realise our true self of oneness, one with all beings, one too with That which expresses itself in them and in all that we see and experience. This equality and this oneness are the indispensable twin foundation we must lay down for a divine being, a divine consciousness, a divine action. Not one with all, we are not spiritual, not divine. Not equal-souled to all things, happenings and creatures, we cannot see spiritually, cannot know divinely, cannot feel divinely towards others. The Supreme Power, the one Eternal and Infinite is equal to all things and to all beings; and because it is equal, it can act with an absolute wisdom according to the truth of its works and its force and according to the truth of each thing and of every creature.” (CWSA 23: 96)

“Yogic Samata is equality of soul, equanimity founded on the sense of the one Self, the one Divine everywhere— seeing the One in spite of all differences, degrees, disparities in the manifestation. The mental principle of equality tries to ignore or else to destroy the differences, degrees and disparities, to act as if all were equal there or to try and make all equal. It is like Hriday, the nephew of Ramakrishna, who when he got the touch from Ramakrishna began to shout, “Ramakrishna, you are the Brahman and I too am the Brahman; there is no difference between us”, till Ramakrishna, as he refused to be quiet, had to withdraw the power. Or like the disciple who refused to listen to the Mahout and stood before the elephant, saying, “I am Brahman”, until the elephant took him up in his trunk and put him aside. When he complained to his Guru, the Guru said, “Yes, but why didn’t you listen to the Mahout Brahman? That was why the elephant Brahman had to lift you up and put you out of harm’s way.” In the manifestation there are two sides to the Truth and you cannot ignore either.” (CWSA 29: 129)

23. The perfected action of equality transforms all the values of things on the basis of the divine anandamaya power

24. The outward action will be directed by the Shakti

25. We will be satisfied with whatever comes from the Master of the being and in that find a subtlest and yet fullest spiritualised satisfaction and delight

26. There can be no failure; for whatever happens is the intention of the Master of the worlds, not final, but a step on his way

“The perfected action of equality transforms all the values of things on the basis of the divine anandamaya power. The outward action may remain what it was or may change, that must be as the Spirit directs and according to the need of the work to be done for the world,—but the whole inner action is of another kind. The Shakti in its different powers of knowledge, action, enjoyment, creation, formulation, will direct itself to the different aims of existence, but in another spirit; they will be the aims, the fruits, the lines of working laid down by the Divine from his light above, not anything claimed by the ego for its own separate sake. The mind, the heart, the vital being, the body itself will be satisfied with whatever comes to them from the dispensation of the Master of the being and in that find a subtlest and yet fullest spiritualised satisfaction and delight; but the divine knowledge and will above will work forward towards its farther ends. Here both success and failure lose their present meanings. There can be no failure; for whatever happens is the intention of the Master of the worlds, not final, but a step on his way, and if it appears as an opposition, a defeat, a denial, even for the moment a total denial of the aim set before the instrumental being, it is so only in appearance and afterwards it will appear in its right place in the economy of his action, ...” (CWSA 24: 726)

“The first result of the equal mind and spirit is to bring about an increasing charity and inner toleration of all persons, ideas, views, actions, because it is seen that God is in all beings and each acts according to his nature, his svabhava, and its present formulations. When there is the positive equal Ananda, this deepens to a sympathetic understanding and in the end an equal universal love.”  (CWSA 24: 727)

27. Why we shall receive all happenings with an equal soul

28. For in all happenings we shall see the will of the Master of all works

29. Those who have the inner eye that sees will realise that the Divine manifests himself

30. All experiences move towards a divine event

31. The ripened soul does not condemn but seeks to understand and master

32. Therefore we shall receive all things with an equal soul from the hands of the Master

33. We shall continue steadily on our way meeting all things with an equal calm

34. Until we are ready for a more exalted status and can enter into the supreme and universal Ananda

“And so too we shall have the same equality of mind and soul towards all happenings, painful or pleasurable, defeat and success, honour and disgrace, good repute and ill-repute, good fortune and evil fortune. For in all happenings we shall see the will of the Master of all works and results and a step in the evolving expression of the Divine. He manifests himself, to those who have the inner eye that sees, in forces and their play and results as well as in things and in creatures. All things move towards a divine event; each experience, suffering and want no less than joy and satisfaction, is a necessary link in the carrying out of a universal movement which it is our business to understand and second. To revolt, to condemn, to cry out is the impulse of our unchastened and ignorant instincts. Revolt like everything else has its uses in the play and is even necessary, helpful, decreed for the divine development in its own time and stage; but the movement of an ignorant rebellion belongs to the stage of the soul’s childhood or to its raw adolescence. The ripened soul does not condemn but seeks to understand and master, does not cry out but accepts or toils to improve and perfect, does not revolt inwardly but labours to obey and fulfil and transfigure. Therefore we shall receive all things with an equal soul from the hands of the Master. Failure we shall admit as a passage as calmly as success until the hour of the divine victory arrives. Our souls and minds and bodies will remain unshaken by acutest sorrow and suffering and pain if in the divine dispensation they come to us, unoverpowered by intensest joy and pleasure. Thus supremely balanced we shall continue steadily on our way meeting all things with an equal calm until we are ready for a more exalted status and can enter into the supreme and universal Ananda.” (CWSA 23: 225)

XXII—No supramental vibration can be transmitted except in this perfect Equality

“First of all, from the psychological point of view, there must be the condition ... perfect equality. It is an absolute condition. I have observed since 1956, for years, that no supramental vibration can be transmitted except in this perfect equality. If there is the least opposition to this equality — in fact the least movement of ego, any preference of the ego, it does not come through, it is not transmitted. This is already difficult enough.

Added to this, there are two conditions [power of expansion, of widening and total plasticity] for the realisation to become total and they are not easily fulfilled. It is not very difficult on the intellectual plane — I am not speaking here of just anyone at all but of people who have already practised yoga and followed a discipline — it is relatively easy; on the psychological plane too, if you bring in this equality, it is not very difficult.” (CWM 10: 112–113)

“Two irrefutable signs prove that one is in relation with the supramental:

1. a perfect and constant equality,

2. an absolute certainty in the knowledge.

To be perfect, the equality must be invariable and spontaneous, effortless, towards all circumstances, all happenings, all contacts, material or psychological, irrespective of their character and impact.

The absolute and indisputable certainty of an infallible knowledge through identity.” (CWM 15: 102)

“A perfect equality towards all circumstances, material or psychological, and an absoluteness in the knowledge — a knowledge that comes not through the mind but through identity. The person who is in contact with the supramental possesses these two qualities.

You cannot understand unless you have the experience.” (CWM 15: 103)

XXIII—Short Summary

The first necessity for Spiritual Perfection is Perfect Equality

I—What spiritual perfection means?

1.      A spiritual self-perfection means a growing into oneness with the nature of divine being

2.      For the integral Yoga perfection will mean a divine spirit and a divine nature which will admit a divine relation and action in the world

3.      Means a divinising of the whole nature, a rejection of all its wrong knots of being and action

4.      Means a growth out of a lower undivine into a higher divine nature

5.      Mind, life, body find their perfection only by opening out to something beyond them

6.      A greater perfection can only be arrived at by a higher power entering in and taking up the whole action of the being

7.      A persistent giving up of all the action into the hands of this greater Power until the Divine effects the entire spiritual conversion of the being

8.      A Yoga of integral perfection regards man as a divine spiritual being involved in mind, life and body

9.      It aims therefore at a liberation and a perfection of man’s divine nature

10.      To open oneself to the supracosmic Divine is an essential condition of this integral perfection

11.      This divine self-perfection is a conversion of the human into a likeness of the divine nature

II—Essential and fundamental element of perfection will start from a basic equality of the soul

Fundamental poise of the soul regarding and meeting the things, impacts

This poise we shall arrive at by growing into a perfect equality, samata

III—What is perfect equality or perfect samata?

1.      In perfect samata one sees all as equal, friends and enemies and not disturbed by what men do or by what happens

2.      A perfect equality of our spirit and nature is a means by which we can move back from the troubled and ignorant outer consciousness into this inner kingdom of heaven

3.      The complete fruit of the discipline of Equality is self-elevation to the Divine Nature

4.      The discipline of equality demanded from us by the self-perfecting aim in Yoga

5.      For the Supermind to be able to express itself through a terrestrial consciousness is the perfect equality that comes from spiritual identification with the Supreme

6.      Everything becomes the Supreme in a perfect equality

7.      To change the whole substance of our being into substance of the self a perfect Equality and Peace of the soul is indispensable

8.      Even a perfect human action is impossible if we do not have Equality

9.      The self-perfecting individual who seeks to be one in will with the Divine

10.      The self-perfecting individual who makes his nature an instrument of the divine purpose

11.      Must mould himself into an image of this Supreme Equality

12.      Equality is the sign of unity with the Brahman, of becoming Brahman

13.      Equality is the sign of growing into an undisturbed spiritual poise of being in the Infinite

14.      Equality is a sign of having passed beyond the egoistic determinations of our nature

15.      Of our having conquered our enslaved response to the dualities

16.      Of having transcended the gunas, of our having entered into the calm and peace of liberation

17.      Equality is a term of consciousness which brings the eternal tranquillity of the Infinite

18.      Equality means another thing—to have an equal view of men and their nature and acts and the forces that move them

19.      Equality helps one to see the truth by pushing away all personal feelings, judgments and all mental bias

20.      For a sadhak, to surmount personal feeling and live in the calm strength of the spirit is an essential part of his progress

IV—Why there is a need of equality in sadhana

1.      The play of cosmic forces does not always work in favour of a smooth and direct line for the sadhana

2.      It often brings in upheavals, sudden turns which break the line, upsetting what had been temporarily settled and established

3.      To preserve equanimity and make an opportunity of progress out of all that happens in the life and the sadhana

4.      There is a higher secret Will transcendent behind the play and it is that Will which one must wait upon and have faith in

5.      But you must not expect to be able always to understand its workings

6.      What the mind wants is not at all always what is intended in a larger purpose

7.      Not to build on outward circumstances, conditions as if they were fundamental things

8.      Not to be upset by outward things as it makes no difference to the Divine Purpose in us

9.      Do whatever is necessary but not exciting or upsetting yourself

10.      Equality is the first word of the path of works and the path of knowledge

V—How a Yogi maintains Equality

1.      The eye of the Yogin sees not only outward events and persons but the enormous forces which precipitate them into action

2.      When one is habituated to see the things behind, one is no longer prone to be touched by the outward aspects

3.      Then one does not expect any remedy from political, institutional or social changes

4.      The remedy is through the descent of a consciousness which is greater than these forces and can change them or make them disappear

5.      The Yogic attitude consists of Equality and Calm

6.      Yogins consider the state of emptiness and quietude and absence of reactions as a great step in advance

7.      This neutral condition changes into peace or into an equal Ananda

8.      The Yogi arrives at fixed calm in the inner Purusha by division in his being

9.      Once Calm is fixed he can proceed to control the outer man

VI—How equality helps in sadhana

1.      Equality is the spiritual way of replying to life

2.      Equality is the spiritual way of embracing life

3.      Equality compels life to become a perfect form of action of the self and spirit

4.      Equality is the first secret of the soul’s mastery of existence

5.      When we have Equality in perfection, we are admitted to the very ground of the Divine Spiritual Nature

6.      Samata, equality helps the mental quietude

7.      Equality helps vital, vital mind and thinking mind to fall silent

8.      Complete Equality makes our adhara a firm and capable of containing full down flow of Power and Ananda

9.      Divine Forces are too strong for human unless there is extremely solid basis of calmness of Equality of soul

10.      A calm and equality in the mind and vital can make it impossible for the hostile forces to succeed

11.      To know the Mother’s love and blessings face the social difficulties with equality

12.      The sign and proof that we are near the goal, is a perfect equality

13.      Then all success and failure become marvellous gifts that the Lord in his infinite solicitude showers upon us

VII—The attitude of equality in the Integral Yoga

1.      In Integral Yoga the progress is done by cultivation of equanimity, samata and by the psychic transformation

2.      Yogic attitude in Integral Yoga is not one of forceful suppression, but of equality with regard to the objects of desire

3.      Cultivate an entire equality and equanimity with respect to the lower vital it can becomes gradually purified and calm and equal

4.      Equality in the face of all circumstances is the chief aim to be attained in order to live in Auroville

5.      The ideal to attain is an unflinching equality of soul

6.      The sadhak has to keep equanimity in all conditions, even when the higher consciousness and experience are not there

7.      Suddhi, purification is founded when one is able to live in Calm and Equality

8.      Once purification is accomplished the rest of sadhana becomes easy building on an assured basis

9.      A vast Inner Equality and Peace is a great but incomplete liberation, for the outer nature too has a right to deliverance

10.      Equality in all parts of the being is the first foundation of the Yogic status

11.      A full calm and equality in the outer nervous parts is also required

12.      A consciousness full of equality is the basis on which the Mother’s consciousness can be built up

13.      If Equality can be fixed, then all necessary changes can proceed quietly without disturbances

14.      Then a right and clear understanding of people and things can grow

15.      Then one can deal with them without friction

16.      Once equality consciousness has come, it is bound to return and increase

17.      An Equality gained by strong mental control is the power to bear which is only a first step towards Samata

18.      The inner spiritual progress depends on the way we react to outer conditions from within

19.      The right attitude is an inner state of Equality and Calm

20.      It is only from inner state that one can be stronger than life and hope to conquer disturbing forces

21.      The first things to be learned on the Path is to remain quiet within

22.      Then the experiences can go on with some steadiness

23.      Then the periods of interruption and fluctuation can become periods of assimilation and exhaustion of difficulty rather than denials of sadhana

24.      Equality with a vision that sees also the standpoint of others is needed in the full Yogic consciousness

25.      A full calm and equality in the inner being which already exist, but you have to get also in the outer nervous parts completely

26.      In Yoga one should be able to do with things or without things in the same spirit of equality

VIII—The role of Equality in the Integral Yoga

1.      Equality is a very important part of Integral Yoga

2.      The equal poise in action is necessary for the Sadhaka of the Integral Yoga

3.      The things demanded of those who would do works as the perfect instruments of the Divine are

4.      Sees all things as the manifestations of the Divine, the one Existence

5.      Is not angry, troubled, impatient with the way of things

6.      Is not excited or over-eager

7.      But sees that the law must be obeyed and the pace of time respected

8.      Observes and understands with sympathy the actuality of things and beings

9.      Also looks behind the present appearance to their inner significances and forward to the unrolling of their divine possibilities

10.      For hastening the ways of evolution a divine power must be present in the nature

11.      To allow the divine power in action we have to proceed on the basis of a spiritual equality

12.      The Supreme Divine Nature is founded on Equality

13.      Supreme Being as a pure silent Self is equal, unmoved, the witness in an impartial peace

14.      Supreme Being as a Master of cosmic existence is also founded on Equality

15.      The Divine Nature does not share in our groping and our passions

16.      This Truth we can see when we rise out of the phenomenal mind into the heights of the Spiritual Being

17.      To be Equal is to be Infinite and Universal

18.      How the Divine Acts — The Divine is equal to all

19.      Even for human perfection equality is one of its chief elements

20.      To master lower nature Equality is the condition of the movement

21.      After acquiring equality within the consciousness then one can extend it or apply it to the various fields of the activity of the consciousness

22.      In the Equality there is a precise knowledge of what is to be done

IX—First step to Perfect Equality is the conquest of our Emotional and Vital being

1.      Desire is the impurity of the Prana, the life-principle

2.      A free Prana means a life soul which fronts the contact of outward things without desire

3.      And receives them with an equal response; delivered, uplifted above the duality

4.      Then the life principle will be opened to a greater system of values of experience

5.      Grief, wrath, hatred, fear, inequality of love fall away from the equal heart

6.      By Equality of the heart we get away from the troubled desire soul, open the gates of this profounder being

X—The Perfection of Equality of Heart

1.      In the perfection of Equality of heart there is no killing of the emotional nature but a transformation

2.      In the perfection of Equality of heart Love will be not destroyed, but enlarged to its widest capacity, deepened to its spiritual rapture

XI—The Equality of our Dynamic Being

1.      The same equality must be brought into the rest of our dynamic being

2.      We partially control all unequal impulses by reason, aesthetic sense and ethical notions

3.      But the seeker will draw back from all dualities, regard them with an equal eye and arrive through Equality of the dynamic Tapas, spiritual force

4.      The ordinary mental standards will be exceeded on the basis of this dynamic equality

5.      The sadhaks will must look for a motive of Divine Will power guided by Divine Knowledge

6.      A perfect Equality of the Will does not respond to the lower impulses

7.      But watch for a greater seeing impulsion from the Light above the mind

8.      And wait for enlightenment and direction from a superior plane of vision

9.      There will be plenty of stumblings and errors and imperfections before completion of the process of transformation

10.      The seeker will proceed on its way with a firm assurance and await with growing calm the vicissitudes

XII—The Equality of the Thinking Mind

1.      The Equality of the thinking mind is a very important part of the perfection of the instruments in the nature

2.      Our attachment to our intellectual preferences, judgments, opinions, imaginations and the insistences of our pragmatic mind, intellectual truth-mind, must go

3.      The equal thought-mind will accept knowledge and ignorance both without being bound to either

4.      Will await a luminous transcendence

5.      Mental activity in a Perfect Equality is replaced by an Intuitive Activity

6.      The remedy of impurity of understanding lies in a perfect Equality of the mind

7.      The purified understanding will refuse to be attached even to those ideas of which it is the most certain

8.      In ignorance Equal mind will see an imprisoned knowledge, in error a truth at work

9.      The objective of equal mind is a progress to the Spiritual Higher Plane Light

10.      A stilling of the mental thought may be part of the discipline

11.      Make the mind an equal channel of a Higher Light and Knowledge

12.      There must also be a transformation of the mental substance

13.      The Word has to be given a body in the conscious form of the nature

XIII—Equality of Physical Consciousness

1.      At present the necessity is to prepare the Physical Consciousness; for that a complete equality and peace

2.      The Outer Equality is the Equality in the body, to have a physical poise, to receive forces without being troubled

3.      Body Equality is perfect Immobility

4.      Physical nature’s normal tendency is inertia which responds only to the ordinary vital forces and not to the higher forces

5.      If one has a perfect equality and peace then one can bring down the same peace with a force of the higher consciousness which can alter physical nature

6.      The physical body in a perfect equality and surrender is ready to enjoy the divine Ananda

XIV—The eternal Equality of Sachchidananda

1.      The eternal Equality of Sachchidananda is the Equality in the terms of the Integral Yoga

XV—Equality in the Gita

1.      Equality is one of the first Godward approaches in the Gita’s way of Karmayoga

2.      The Gita aims at a turn, an attitude that will change the whole poise of the soul, the strong immobility of an immortal spirit

3.      The test Gita lays down is an absolute Equality of the mind and the heart

4.      The tiniest reaction is a proof that the discipline is imperfect

5.      Little pebble of imperfection may throw down the whole achievement of the Yoga

6.      The complete achievement of a perfect Equality is put forward as the normal status of a spiritual being

7.      A perfect spiritual equality is the one true and infallible sign of the cessation of desire

8.      Semblances of an Equal spirit must not be mistaken for the profound and vast spiritual Equality

9.      The one thing needed for the soul-state to lead into a higher life is the fixed anchoring of the intelligence in a state of desireless Equality

10.      The Gita does teach the Equality which rises above sin and virtue, beyond good and evil

11.      This Equality is a part of the Brahmic consciousness

12.      The Gita tells us that Equality of soul and mind is Yoga

13.      This equality is the foundation of the Brahman-state

14.      The equality of the will only means for entering into the divine consciousness and living in it

15.      For action to rise out of the human into the divine plane, a perfect Equality of works have to be done as a Sacrifice

16.      Equality is the great stamp of the liberated soul, man in Samadhi

17.      The most discernible signs of that Equality are subjective

18.      The man in Samadhi does unattached works with Equality

19.      Knowledge means Equality and non-attachment to Desire

20.      Our initial spiritual need is to find our poise of perfect peace and Equality

21.      The result of the Knowledge, the Desirelessness and the Impersonality is a Perfect Equality in the Soul and the Nature

a. The Knowledge

The librated man does not do the work as others do in subjection to Nature

He is poised in the silent calm of the soul

b.      The Desirelessness

c.      The Spiritual Impersonality

22.      Equality is one of the sign of Divine Worker

23.      The modes of Nature are in its constant character perturbed and unequal

24.      The transcendence of the gunas, is the unperturbed spirit’s superiority

25.      Equality is the sign and also for the aspirant the test

26.      Where there is inequality of soul, there is deviation from knowledge, loss of oneness of the Brahman

27.      Equality has always been held up to admiration as the philosophic ideal and the characteristic temperament of the sages

28.      The Gita takes up this philosophic ideal, but carries it far beyond into a Higher Region where we find ourselves breathing a larger and purer air

29.      Gita’s first description of Equality is that of the Stoic philosopher

30.      The Sattwic Equality

31.      Perfect security can only be had by something higher than the sattwic quality

32.      Something higher than philosopher’s intelligent self

33.      But the Divine sage’s Spiritual Self which is beyond the three gunas

34.      All must be consummated by a Divine Birth into the Higher Spiritual Nature

35.      The Equality of the Gita is a large Synthetic Equality

36.      In which all is lifted up into the integrality of the Divine Being and the Divine Nature

37.      By a perfect Equality only can we repose our works completely in the Brahman

38.      Whenever the Gita speaks of knowledge, it turns at once to speak of Equality which is its result

39.      Whenever the Gita speaks of Equality, it turns to speak too of the knowledge which is its basis

40.      The Equality the Gita enjoins does not begin and end in a static condition of the soul useful only for self-liberation

41.      The Equality the Gita is always a basis of works

42.      Prakriti works by the inequality of her three modes, gunas

43.      In perfect Equality one finds the happiness that exists in the Self

44.      Whoever sees with Equality everything in the image of the Self, the Gita holds him to be the supreme Yogin

45.      We can by equality, transfer the poise of our soul from its lower immergence in Nature and draw it back into the Self

46.      The Gita’s first insistent demand is on equality as this is the basis

47.      On the wide foundation of calm equality, bhakti must raise the spirit towards some greatest highest perfection

48.      The bhakta will be freed from the troubled agitated lower nature

49.      Nor is he afflicted or troubled by the world, a soul of peace with whom all are at peace

50.      Equality is the perfect foundation which is demanded by the Gita for the great liberation

51.      The signs of a man who is above the three gunas is Equality of which Krishna have constantly spoken

52.      Inwardly he regards happiness and suffering alike, gold and mud and stone as of equal value

53.      To him the pleasant and the unpleasant, praise and blame, honour and insult, friends and enemies are equal things

54.      He is steadfast in a wise inner calm and quietude

55.      Sattwa, rajas or tamas may rise or cease in his outer mentality

56.      He has seated himself in the conscious light of another principle than the nature of the gunas

57.      That greater consciousness remains steadfast in him

58.      From that height he sees that action of gunas and their storm and calm are not himself but only a movement of Prakriti

59.      His self is immovable above, this is the impersonality of the Brahmic status

60.      To ascend into the divine nature, one must first fix oneself in a perfect Spiritual Equality

61.      Dispassionate equality is a heaven of impersonal calm, an egoless feeling

62.      Surrender cannot be truly done so long as there is inequality

63.      In perfect equality when surrender to the Highest is done then the divine Will determines

64.      And the divine Power executes freely all works in the purity and safety of your transmuted nature

65.      The work done in a perfect equality and an unmoved calm and peace uplifts your sacrifice [surrender]

66.      At its highest this surrender can be the expression of a calm and glad submission in active oneness

XVI—The test of Equality

1.      Receive unpleasant circumstances with a perfect calm

2.      Physical troubles always come as lessons to teach equality

3.      A settled equality immensely extends, even illimitably, a man’s power of endurance and forbearance

4.      Regard the death of relative as ordeals to be passed through with Equality and Faith in the Divine

5.      The greater the difficulties that rise in the work the more one can profit by them in deepening the equality

6.      Someone who knows how to smile in all circumstances is very close to true equality of soul

XVII—Shanti Chatusthaya

Samata, Shanti, Sukha, Hasya

A sadhaka must have four things equality, a firm peace, a positive inner spiritual happiness and a clear joy and laughter of the soul

XVIII—What is Active or Positive Equality?

XIX—Negative samata and shanti are the necessary preparation of Positive Samata

XX — Our perfection will be greater and complete, if we have Active Equality

1.      Why with Active Equality we can possess the world in the power of the calm and equal Spirit

2.      Because the world, Nature, are a manifestation of the Self, the Divine

3.      Once we have the full consciousness of Self, we can then put a true divine value on things

4.      Then we can receive and act on the world with the calm, joy, knowledge, seeing will of the Spirit

5.      To approach all existence by Positive Equality requires a new knowledge of unity

6.      This new knowledge of unity is to see all things as oneself

7.      To see all things in God and God in all things

8.      All persons and forces are masks of the Self

9.      All movements are results of the one power in action, ruled by the one divine wisdom

10.      There must be a vision and a feeling of oneness with all creatures

11.      My personality is now only one centre of action of that universal self

12.      My individuality is his and is universalised, a knower of the universal Ananda

13.      First, we accept in the spirit and in the higher reason and will this spiritual knowledge

14.      But the lower mental being clings to the old egoistic way of seeing and reacting to all impacts

15.      These two can be divided, the higher spiritual disengaged from the lower mental nature

16.      In this stage the difficulties of others are added to our own      40

17.      The forces which oppose the perfection attack to conquer their universal kingdom

18.      Finally we find that there comes a power to surmount these difficulties

19.      The higher reason and will imposes itself on the lower mind

20.      The lower mind sensibly changes into the vast type of the spiritual nature

21.      It takes even a delight in feeling, surmounting all difficulties until they are eliminated by its own transformation

22.      Then the whole being lives in a the universal calm and joy, delight and will of the Spirit

23.      To see how this positive method works, we will note its principle in the three great powers of knowledge, will and feeling

24.      Principle of feeling

25.      The soul in the lower mind gives three varying values of pain, pleasure and neutral indifference

26.      Because of the greater Self within us, our secret soul takes delight in all adverse and favourable experience

27.      This is why we have a delight in existing take a pleasure in struggle, suffering and the harsher colours of existenc

28.      To get the universal Ananda all our instruments must learn to take the essential joy of all things

29.      In all things there is a principle of Ananda

30.      Ordinarily delight is not, owing to desire

31.      The vital being has to be liberated from desire and its inequalities and to accept to turn into pure enjoyment the rasa

32.      Then all is changed into the full and pure ecstasy of the spiritual Ananda

33.      The positive equality accepts three reactions of the mind to things, ignorance, error and true knowledge

34.      The knowledge of the all-knowing Self is hidden as if in a dark sheath of ignorance

35.      The positive equality will not attach itself to the known or the known with an equal mind open to all possibility

36.      The positive equality will seek for the element of truth behind all opinions, the knowledge concealed within the error

37.      Will always be ready for new knowledge, seeking more integral unifying wisdom

38.      Equal seeker of truth will rise beyond the intellect, accepting each stage of ascent

39.      This equality of the intelligence is an essential condition for rising to the higher supramental and spiritual knowledge

40.      The will in us, is the most forceful power of our being

41.      The positive equality accepts as a tangle of many forms of Will from which it must start

42.      This must be transformed into the will of the Truth into the freedom of the divine Will in action

43.      The positive equality will see that the stumblings are necessary to experience and in the end steps towards the goal

44.      It will look for the divine meaning and the divine guidance

45.      This equality will open the nature to the guidance of the divine and universal Will

XXI—The Integral Yoga and Positive Equality

1.      The Integral Yoga will make use of both the passive and the active methods

2.      The Integral Yoga will go beyond the method of endurance, in which endurance will no longer be needed

3.      Since the self will then be in a calm and powerful spontaneous possession of the universal energy

4.      The integral Yoga will use the method of impartial indifference

5.      And move towards a high-seated impartial acceptance of life strong to transform all experience into the greater values of the equal spirit

6.      The integral Yoga will use fully the positive method and turn existence into a field only of the perfected individual knowledge, power and Ananda

7.      It will have the oneness by which it can live in the existence of others and helping force in the movement towards the same perfection

8.      It will live for the Divine, not shunning world-existence and equally one with the Divine in all his planes

9.      The foundation of Positive Samata is knowledge which perceives the whole universe as a perception of one Being that manifests itself in multitudinous forms

10.      This One Self of is my Self as well as the self of all others and all things

11.      This Self is again the Lord of the Cosmos

12.      The manifestation is a Lila or play of the Lord who is in His being all delight

13.      Therefore the play is also a play of delight

14.      We have to unite with this Self and with all things in Him, viewing them as our self, in order to get rid of pain and enjoy the divine Ananda

15.      We should accept without revolt the Lila equally and play of the all-Blissful Lord

16.      Though we are not attached, we must learn to take delight in all things even as the Lord takes delight in them

17.      The first delight is that of the Sakshi or Witness who watches the whole action of the universe and his own action like watching a play

18.      Sakshi takes the rasa [divine Delight] of the whole thing by the intellect, the sense and the aesthetic faculties

19.      The knowledge behind the idea that there should be equality towards all

20.      Now equality of mind means universality

21.      The equality is a fundamental oneness of attitude to all persons and all things and happenings because of the perception of all as the One

22.      Not equal-souled to all things, happenings and creatures, we cannot see spiritually, cannot know divinely, cannot feel divinely towards others

23.      The perfected action of equality transforms all the values of things on the basis of the divine anandamaya power

24.      The outward action will be directed by the Shakti

25.      We will be satisfied with whatever comes from the Master of the being and in that find a subtlest and yet fullest spiritualised satisfaction and delight

26.      There can be no failure; for whatever happens is the intention of the Master of the worlds, not final, but a step on his way

27.      Why we shall receive all happenings with an equal soul

28.      For in all happenings we shall see the will of the Master of all works

29.      Those who have the inner eye that sees will realise that the Divine manifests himself

30.      All experiences move towards a divine event

31.      The ripened soul does not condemn but seeks to understand and master

32.      Therefore we shall receive all things with an equal soul from the hands of the Master

33.      We shall continue steadily on our way meeting all things with an equal calm

34.      Until we are ready for a more exalted status and can enter into the supreme and universal Ananda

XXII—No supramental vibration can be transmitted except in this perfect Equality

1. The Mother has observed since 1956, that no supramental vibration can be transmitted except in perfect equality

2. The least movement of ego or preference of the ego in perfect equality does not allow it to be transmitted

3. The person who is in contact with the supramental possesses a perfect equality towards all circumstances and an absoluteness in the knowledge

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