How to Become Absolutely Sincere

A Compilation from the Works of

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

How to Become Absolutely Sincere

© 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 and Radhika Raheja

Cover done by Kavita Dutta

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

The photograph of the bunch of flowers on the cover has been given the spiritual significance ‘SINCERITY’ by the Mother.

The botanical name of the flower is Aster amellus. (The Spiritual Significance of Flowers, Part I, page 112)

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

This book How To Become ABSOLUTELY SINCERE is the second book on the virtue ‘SINCERITY’. The first book is available under the title SINCERITY in SADHANA.

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 subject. To give emphasis in certain quotations, the compiler has bold faced some words.

Jamshed M. Mavalwalla

Contents

I—Why Absolute Sincerity Is Insisted in Yoga

II—It Is Difficult to Be Sincere

III—How to Become Absolutely Sincere

IV—The Obstacles That Must Be Overcome to Become Sincere

V—The Discipline of the Vital Requires Perfect Sincerity

VI—The Attitude of Sincerity in Work

VII—To Act Sincerely According to the Divine Will

VIII—Who Is Perfectly Sincere

IX—The Avalanche of Troubles Is Always for Sincere People

X—Sincerity in Fight Against the Adverse Forces

XI—The Divine Has Taken the Burden of Terrestrial Nature Sincerely

XII—The Measure of the Soul’s Sincerity

XIII—Messages of the Mother on Sincerity to Different Institutions

XIV—With the Descent of Supramental a Little Sincerity Becomes Miraculous in Its Result

XV—Short Summary

“Sincerity in Yoga means to respond to the Divine alone ...” (CWSA 29: 53)

“To be entirely sincere means to desire the divine Truth only, to surrender yourself more and more to the Divine Mother, to reject all personal demand and desire other than this one aspiration, to offer every action in life to the Divine and do it as the work given without bringing in the ego. This is the basis of the divine life.” (CWSA 29: 51)

“By definition the Ashramite has resolved to consecrate his life to the realisation and service of the Divine.

For this four virtues are indispensable, without which progress is uncertain and subject to interruptions and troublesome falls at the first opportunity:

Sincerity, faithfulness, modesty and gratitude.” (CWM 13: 113)

“Sincerity is the gate to Divinity” (CWM 14: 65)

I—Why Absolute Sincerity Is Insisted in Yoga

“Human beings for the most part have the inveterate habit of deceiving themselves. They deceive themselves in hundreds of different ways, each more slyly tricky and subtle than the other, and all this with at once a perfect candour and a perfect insincerity.” (CWM 14: 70)

“One must have an absolutely transparent sincerity. Lack of sincerity is the cause of the difficulties we meet at present. Insincerity is in all men. ... Man’s very nature makes him insincere—it is very complicated, for he is constantly deceiving himself, hiding the truth from himself, making excuses for himself. …

It is difficult to be sincere, but at least one can be mentally sincere; this is what can be demanded of Aurovilians. The force is there, present as never before; man’s insincerity prevents it from descending, from being felt. The world lives in falsehood, all relations between men have until now been based on falsehood and deceit.” (CWM 13: 268)

“To work for your perfection, the first step is to become conscious of yourself, of the different parts of your being and their respective activities. You must learn to distinguish these different parts one from another, so that you may become clearly aware of the origin of the movements that occur in you, the many impulses, reactions and conflicting wills that drive you to action. It is an assiduous study which demands much perseverance and sincerity. For man’s nature, especially his mental nature, has a spontaneous tendency to give a favourable explanation for everything he thinks, feels, says and does.” (CWM 12: 3)

“It is this sincerity in the aspiration for progress, in the will for truth, in the need to be truly pure—pure as it is understood in the spiritual life—it is this sincerity which is the key to all progress. With it you know—and you can.

There is always, somewhere in the being, something which prefers to deceive itself, otherwise the light is there, always ready to guide, but you shut your eyes in order not to see it.” (CWM 3: 192)

“Why do I insist on absolute sincerity? Perhaps the younger children don’t understand what sincerity is, but the older ones surely ought to know! You have all passed through childhood and you probably remember what you were taught, what you were told when you were young. Parents nearly always tell their children, ‘You must not lie, it is very bad to tell a lie.’ But the unfortunate thing is that they lie in your presence and then you wonder why they want you to do something which they don’t do themselves.

But, apart from that, why do I insist on the fact that children should be told from a very early age that it is absolutely necessary to be sincere? I am not addressing those who were brought up here, but those who were brought up in an ordinary family, with ordinary ideas. Children are very often taught how to outsmart others, how to dissimulate so as to appear good in others’ eyes. Some parents try to control children through fear, and that is the worst possible method of education, for it is an incentive to lying, deceit, hypocrisy and all the rest. But if you repeatedly explain to children something of this kind: If you are not absolutely sincere, not only with others but also with yourself, if at any time you try to cover up your imperfections and failings, you will never make any progress, you will always remain what you are throughout all your life, without ever making any progress. So, even if you only want to grow out of this primitive unconscious state into a progressive consciousness, the most important thing, the one absolutely important thing is sincerity. …

And don’t think that there are people to whom this rule does not apply, for you cannot live in the physical world without having a share in the physical nature, and physical nature is essentially a mixture. You will see, when you become absolutely sincere, that there is nothing in yourself that is absolutely unmixed. But it is only when you look yourself in the face, in the light of your highest consciousness, that whatever you want to eliminate from your nature will disappear. Without this striving for absolute sincerity, the defect, the little shadow, will stay in a corner biding its time to come out.” (CWM 15: 297–298)

“Before the Eternal Consciousness a drop of sincerity has more value than an ocean of pretension and hypocrisy.” (CWM 14: 69)

II—It Is Difficult to Be Sincere

“Fundamentally, whatever be the path one follows—whether the path of surrender, consecration, knowledge—if one wants it to be perfect, it is always equally difficult, and there is but one way, one only, I know of only one: that is perfect sincerity, but perfect sincerity!

Do you know what perfect sincerity is?...

Never to try to deceive oneself, never let any part of the being try to find out a way of convincing the others, never to explain favourably what one does in order to have an excuse for what one wants to do, never to close one’s eyes when something is unpleasant, never to let anything pass, telling oneself, ‘That is not important, next time it will be better.’

Oh! It is very difficult. Just try for one hour and you will see how very difficult it is. Only one hour, to be totally, absolutely sincere. To let nothing pass. That is, all one does, all one feels, all one thinks, all one wants, is exclusively the Divine.

‘I want nothing but the Divine, I think of nothing but the Divine, I do nothing but what will lead me to the Divine, I love nothing but the Divine.’

Try—try, just to see, try for half an hour, you will

see how difficult it is! And during that time take great care that there isn’t a part of the vital or a part of the mind or a part of the physical being nicely hidden there, at the back, so that you don’t see it (Mother hides her hands behind her back) and don’t notice that it is not collaborating—sitting quietly there so that you don’t unearth it... it says nothing, but it does not change, it hides itself. How many such parts! How many parts hide themselves! You put them in your pocket because you don’t want to see them or else they get behind your back and sit there well-hidden, right in the middle of your back, so as not to be seen. When you go there with your torch—your torch of sincerity—you ferret out all the corners, everywhere, all the small corners which do not consent, the things which say ‘No’ or those which do not move: ‘I am not going to budge. I am glued to this place of mine and nothing will make me move.’ ... You have a torch there with you, and you flash it upon the thing, upon everything. You will see there are many of them there, behind your back, well stuck.

Try, just for an hour, try!” (CWM 6: 132–133)

“The first attitude to be taken, the most indispensable, is the most perfect mental sincerity it is within our power to acquire.

Of all sincerities, this is perhaps the most difficult. Not

to deceive oneself mentally is not an easy thing to achieve.” (CWM 2: 80)

“Therefore the first rule of action laid down by the Gita is to do the work that should be done without any desire for the fruit, niṣkāma karma.

A simple rule in appearance, and yet how difficult to carry out with anything like an absolute sincerity and liberating entireness!” (CWSA 23: 102)

“You believe you are so good, so kind, so well disposed and always full of good feelings. You wish no harm to anybody, you wish only good—all that you tell yourself complacently. But if you look at yourself sincerely as you are thinking, you notice that you have in your head a collection of thoughts which are sometimes frightful and of which you were not at all aware.” (CWM 3: 231)

“Then you find out that if you truly want to be pure and wholly on the side of the Truth, then that requires a vigilance, a sincerity, a self-observation, a self-control which are not common. You begin to realise that it is difficult to be truly sincere.” (CWM 3: 231)

III—How to Become Absolutely Sincere

“Men are always mixed and there are qualities and defects mingled together almost inextricably in their nature. What a man wants to be or wants others to see in him or what he is sometimes on one side of his nature or in some relations can be very different from what he is in the actual fact or in other relations or on another side of his nature. To be absolutely sincere, straightforward, open, is not an easy achievement for human nature. It is only by spiritual endeavour that one can realise it—and to do it needs a severity of introspective self-vision, an unsparing scrutiny of self-observation of which many sadhaks or Yogins even are not capable and it is only by an illumining Grace that reveals the sadhak to himself and transforms what is deficient in him that it can be done. And even then only if he himself consents and lends himself wholly to the divine working.” (CWSA 29: 51)

“Yoga is the way to become sincere in all parts of the being.”  (CWM 13: 268)

“If earnestly you say to the Divine, ‘I want only Thee’, the

Divine will arrange the circumstances in such a way that

you are compelled to be sincere.” (CWM 14: 66)

“How can one hasten the day when the whole being will be able to say, ‘I am Yours—Yours alone’?

There are two actions which in practice merge into one.

(1) Never forget the goal that one wants to attain.

(2) Never allow any part of the being or any of its movements to contradict one’s aspiration.

This also makes it necessary to become conscious of one’s nights, because the activities of the night often contradict the aspiration of the day and undo its work.

Vigilance, sincerity, continuity of effort, and the Grace will do the rest.” (CWM 16: 378)

“The source of sincerity, of will, of perseverance is in the psychic being, but this translates itself differently in different people. Generally it is in the higher part of the mind that this begins to take shape, but for it to be effective at least one part of the vital must respond, because the intensity of your will comes from there, the realising power of the will comes from its contact with the vital. If there were only refractory elements in the vital, you would not be able to do anything at all. But there is always something, somewhere, which is willing—it is perhaps something insignificant, but there is always something which is willing.” (CWM 4: 254–255)

“Q: Did You look serious because I had not told You that I had yielded to the impulse to touch a woman? Make me aware of my insincerity. You promised to speak to me frankly, so I do not understand why You didn’t question me about what You heard.

A: Sincerity demands that you confess immediately without my needing to question you.” (CWM 17: 132–133)

“I trust that you are sincere in saying that these things are finished for ever. If you had not confessed, the Mother would have been obliged to deal severely with you; but as you have confessed, this lapse may be considered as annulled, provided it is never repeated. A greater frankness and sincerity in laying yourself open to the Mother will help you avoid such aberrations in future.

There is no reason why you should not succeed in your sadhana if, having seen the defects of your lower nature, you take a firm resolve in future and keep it to be more strict with yourself, more trustful in the Divine Grace, more sincerely open to the Mother.” (CWSA 35: 673)

“If you have done something which you ought not to have done, you must admit it to yourself; if a less-than-admirable movement has occurred in yourself, you must look it in the face and tell yourself, ‘It was not good,’ or ‘It was disgusting,’ or even ‘It was wicked.’ ” (CWM 15: 297)

“Note that if one has done something bad, if one has done something one knows very well should not be done; for instance, if one tells oneself, ‘Mother knows about it, I don’t need to tell her’, then one takes that in. One carefully shuts a door upon it and then keeps it in one’s heart, or elsewhere. While if one doesn’t think of all that... one feels uneasy, something turns there inside, it is not pleasant... ‘Well, I am going to tell Mother about it.’ When you set out you have to make a great effort, eh? There’s a lump in the throat, the tongue goes dry, and then it is so difficult to find your words—truly, one doesn’t know how to go about it, eh! But now you have resolved, you make a big effort: you draw out the words one by one, like that, with much effort and finally speak, and you try to say it as exactly as possible. My child, that opens a door as wide as this, and I can enter straight into the psychic being, just through this effort of sincerity that you have made. And then, when I enter, I pour in all the light, all the force, the will, the consciousness, all the resolution necessary, so that you cannot repeat what you have done; much... as when too much is poured into a cup, it overflows—there is much that overflows, but all the same a little remains and this little works. And if you repeat this effort once again, until you feel—well, that you have nothing more to say, for there is now nothing more to hide—then that’s very fine, you have made great progress.” (CWM 6: 198–199)

“Q: I see many defects in my nature—for instance my tendency to get angry and to argue. I request the Mother to change all this, for it is in her hands to transform me.

A: It depends not only on the will of the Mother but on the sincerity of the sadhak. I do not see that you have any sincere will to do Yoga or to change.” (CWSA 32: 164)

“Sweet Mother,

Just as there is a methodical progression of exercises for mental and physical education, isn’t there a similar method to progress towards Sri Aurobindo’s yoga? It should vary with each individual. Could you make a step-by-step programme for me to follow daily?

The mechanical regularity of a fixed programme is indispensable for physical, mental and vital development; but this mechanical rigidity has little or no effect on spiritual development where the spontaneity of an absolute sincerity is indispensable.

Sri Aurobindo has written very clearly on this subject. And what he has written on it has appeared in The Synthesis of Yoga.

However, as an initial help to set you on the path, I can tell you: (1) that on getting up, before starting the day, it is good to make an offering of this day to the Divine, an offering of all that one thinks, all that one is, all that one will do; (2) and at night, before going to sleep, it is good to review the day, taking note of all the times one has forgotten or neglected to make an offering of one’s self or one’s action, and to aspire or pray that these lapses do not recur.

This is a minimum, a very small beginning— and it should increase with the sincerity of your consecration.” (CWM 16: 315–316)

“One cannot become altogether this [entirely sincere] at once, but if one aspires at all times to it and calls in always the aid of the Divine Shakti with a true heart and straightforward will, one grows more and more into this consciousness.” (CWSA 29: 51)

“The opposition in certain parts of the being exists in every sadhak and can be very obstinate. Sincerity comes by having first the constant central aspiration or will, next, the honesty to see and avow the refusal in parts of the being, finally, the intention of seeing it through even there, however difficult it may be.” (CWSA 31: 646)

“The complete unification of the whole being around the psychic centre is the essential condition to realise a perfect sincerity.” (CWM 15: 187)

“It is easy to see that the mistakes are due to a lack of sincerity in the being—the only way out of it is to become sincere. You have been given the power of will and of knowledge for that purpose.” (CWM 14: 71)

“Q: The months are passing quickly and my weakness is increasing. How uneasy I feel! How disobedient, insincere, jealous, weak, covered with passion, ignorance and falsehood! I am unable to see my lower nature. O Mother, what shall I do?

A: It is better not to look at it too much and to turn your attention to more interesting things. One becomes what one thinks: you should think of the strength, the uprightness, the sincerity you wish to become.” (CWM 17: 30)

“... if a fault is shown to you it is as if a treasure were shown to you; that is to say, each time that you discover in yourself a fault, incapacity, lack of understanding, weakness, insincerity, all that prevents you from making a progress, it is as if you discovered a wonderful treasure.” (CWM 3: 220-221)

“It is probable that perfect sincerity can only come when one rises above this sphere of falsehood that is life as we know it on earth, mental life, even the higher mental life.

When one springs up into the higher sphere, into the world of Truth, one will be able to see things as they truly are, and seeing them as they are, one will be able to live them in their truth. Then all falsehoods will naturally crumble. And since the favourable explanations will no longer have any purpose, they will disappear, for there will be nothing left to explain.” (CWM 9: 329–330)

“How can I get this psychic sincerity? Life is becoming more and more boring. It will certainly take a long time to get this sincerity, but how can I live without it?

A: Patience is one of the most essential conditions of the spiritual life. One must know how to wait in order to receive.” (CWM 17: 124)

“You speak of insincerity in your nature. If insincerity means the unwillingness of some part of the being to live according to the highest light one has or to equate the outer with the inner man, then this part is always insincere in all. The only way is to lay stress on the inner being and develop in it the psychic and spiritual consciousness till that comes down in it which pushes out the darkness from the outer man also.” (CWSA 29: 52)

“There are people who do foolish things...

Yes.

And they know they are doing so, but their mind does not justify them, it gives no support, no excuse, no reasoning or explanation. What is this state?

What is this state? People who know that they are doing foolish things, who are conscious, but who are not able to refrain from them, because their mind does not have enough strength to check them?...

It is only the psychic being that has the strength to intervene. If your mind is in contact with your psychic being, if it receives the influence of the psychic being, then it is strong enough to organise the resistance. It knows what the true thing is and what the false; and knowing what the true thing is, if it has the goodwill, it will organise the resistance, give battle and gain the victory. But that is the only condition: it must be in contact with the psychic being. ...

It [purification] happens only when you have decided: ‘Well, this time, I am going to try not to do it, and I shall not do it, I shall apply all my strength and I shall not do it.’ Even if you have just a little success, it is much. Not a big success, but just a small success, a very partial success: you do not carry out what you yearn to do; but the yearning, the desire, the passion is still there and that produces whirls within, but outside you resist, ‘I shall not do it, I shall not move; even if I have to bind myself hand and foot, I shall not do it.’ It is a partial success—but it is a great victory because, due to this, next time you will be able to do a little more. That is to say, instead of holding all the violent passions within yourself, you can begin calming them a little; and you will calm them slowly at first, with difficulty. They will remain long, they will come back, they will trouble you, vex you, produce in you a great disgust, all that, but if you resist well ... then little by little, little by little, that thins out, thins out and you begin to learn the second attitude: ‘Now I want my consciousness to be above those things. There will still be many battles but if my consciousness stands above that, little by little there will come a time when this will return no longer.’ And then there is a time when you feel that you are absolutely free: you do not even perceive it, and then that is all. It may take a long time, it may come soon: that depends on the strength of character, on the sincerity of the aspiration. But even for people who have just a little sincerity, if they subject themselves to this process, they succeed. It takes time. They succeed in the first item: in not expressing. All forces upon earth tend towards self-expression. These forces come with the object of manifesting themselves and if you place a barrier and refuse to express them, they may try to beat against the barrier for a time, but in the end, they will tire themselves out and not being manifested, they will withdraw and leave you quiet.” (CWM 5: 210–212)

“Is it possible for a human being to be perfectly sincere?”

And this question continues:

“Is there a mental sincerity, a vital sincerity, a physical sincerity? What is the difference between these sincerities?”

Naturally, the principle of sincerity is the same everywhere, but its working is different according to the states of being. As for the first question, one could simply answer: No, not if man remains what he is. But he has the possibility of transforming himself sufficiently to become perfectly sincere.

To begin with, it must be said that sincerity is progressive, and as the being progresses and develops, as the universe unfolds in the becoming, sincerity too must go on perfecting itself endlessly. Every halt in that development necessarily changes the sincerity of yesterday into the insincerity of tomorrow.” (CWM 8: 397–398)

“To be perfectly sincere it is indispensable not to have any preference, any desire, any attraction, any dislike, any sympathy or antipathy, any attachment, any repulsion. One must have a total, integral vision of things, in which everything is in its place and one has the same attitude towards all things: the attitude of true vision. This programme is obviously very difficult for a human being to realise. Unless he has decided to divinise himself, it seems almost impossible that he could be free from all these contraries within him. And yet, so long as one carries them in himself, one cannot be perfectly sincere. Automatically the mental, the vital and even the physical working is falsified. I am emphasising the physical, for even the working of the senses is warped: one does not see, hear, taste, feel things as they are in reality as long as one has a preference. So long as there are things which please you and others which don’t, so long as you are attracted by certain things, and repulsed by others, you cannot see things in their reality; you see them through your reaction, your preference or your repulsion. The senses are instruments which get out of order, in the same way as sensations, feelings and thoughts. Therefore, to be sure of what you see, what you feel, what you experience and think, you must have a complete detachment; and this is obviously not an easy task. But until then your perception cannot be wholly true, and so it is not sincere.” (CWM 8: 398)

“Yet usually the people whom I have found most difficult to convert are very respectable people. I am sorry, but I have had much more difficulty with respectable people than with those who were not so, for they had such a good opinion of themselves that it was impossible to open them. But the true thing is difficult. That is to say, one must be very vigilant and very self-controlled, very patient, and have a never-failing goodwill. One must not neglect having a small dose of humility, a sufficient one, and one must never be satisfied with the sincerity one has. One must always want more.” (CWM 6: 440)

“In fact, as long as the ego is there, one cannot say that a being is perfectly sincere, even though he is striving to become sincere. One must pass beyond the ego, give oneself up totally to the divine Will, surrender without reserve and without calculation... then one can be perfectly sincere, but not before.

That does not mean that one should not make an effort to be more sincere than one is, saying to oneself, ‘All right, I shall wait for my ego to disappear in order to be sincere’, because one may reverse the terms and say that if you do not try sincerely your ego will never disappear.” (CWM 8: 399)

“That is purely material, as for example, lighting incense, arranging offerings, or even looking after a temple, decorating an idol, indeed all such purely physical acts.

The second part is a sort of mental consecration which makes the act that is performed a symbol. One is not satisfied with merely lighting the incense, but while lighting the incense one makes this gesture symbolic—for example, of the aspiration burning in the body or of self-giving in a dissolution, in the purification of the fire. That is to say, first the act, then the symbol in this act and the symbolic understanding of what is done.

And finally, behind these two, an aspiration for union; that all this, these acts and the symbol you make of them, may be only a means of drawing closer and closer to the Divine and making yourself fit to unite with Him.

These three things must be there for the act to be complete: that is, something purely material, something mental, and something psychic, the psychic aspiration. If one of the three is there without the other two, it is incomplete. As a rule, very rarely are the three consciously combined. That produces beings of exceptional sincerity and consecration: the entire being, in all its parts, participates in the action.” (CWM 8: 234–235)

“And now, what does it mean to be absolutely sincere?

‘To be absolutely sincere is not to have any division, any contradiction in one’s being.’

If you are made of pieces which are not only different but often quite contradictory, these pieces necessarily create a division in your being. For example, you have one part in yourself which aspires for the divine life, to know the Divine, to unite with Him, to live Him integrally, and then you have another part which has attachments, desires—which it calls ‘needs”— and which not only seeks these things but is quite upset when it does not have them. There are other contradictions, but this one is the most flagrant. There are others, for instance, like wanting to surrender completely to the Divine, to give oneself up totally to His Will and His Guidance, and at the same time, when the experience comes—a common experience on the path when one sincerely tries to give oneself up to the Divine—the feeling that one is nothing, that one can do nothing, that one doesn’t even exist outside the Divine; that is to say, if He were not there, one would not exist and could not do anything, one would not be anything at all.... This experience naturally comes as a help on the path of total self-giving, but there is a part of the being which, when the experience comes, rises up in a terrible revolt and says, ‘But, excuse me! I insist on existing, I insist on being something, I insist on doing things myself, I want to have a personality. And naturally, the second one undoes all that the first had done.

These are not exceptional cases, this happens very frequently. I could give you innumerable examples of such contradictions in the being: when one part tries to take a step forward, the other one comes and demolishes everything. So you have to begin again all the time, and every time it is demolished. That is why you must do this work of sincerity which, when you perceive in your being a part that pulls the other way, makes you take it up carefully, educate it as one educates a child and put it in harmony with the central part. That is the work of sincerity and it is indispensable.

And naturally, when there is a unity, an agreement, a harmony among all the wills of the being, your being can become simple, candid and uniform in its action and tendencies. It is only when the whole being is grouped around a single central movement that you can be spontaneous.” (CWM 8: 283–284)

“I need not appear to be good if my sincerity is perfect.

It is better to be than to seem.” (CWM 15: 189)

“I need not seem if I am.

It is better to be than to seem.

No need of seeming when one is.” (CWM 14: 69)

“Be honest towards yourself—(no self-deception). Be sincere towards the Divine—(no bargaining in the surrender).

Be straightforward with humanity—(no pretence and show).” (CWM 14: 70)

“An uncompromising sincerity is the surest way to spiritual achievement.

Do not pretend—be.

Do not promise—act.

Do not dream—realise.” (CWM 14: 66)

“Vigilance means to be awake, to be on one’s guard, to be sincere—never to be taken by surprise. When you want to do sadhana, at each moment of your life, there is a choice between taking a step that leads to the goal and falling asleep or sometimes even going backwards, telling yourself, ‘Oh, later on, not immediately’—sitting down on the way.” (CWM 3: 202)

“I very much appreciate your frankness and your sincerity. It is true that it is extremely difficult to keep free from vital mixture any close relation with human beings. But the remedy is not to cut all such relations, but to be constantly vigilant (on one’s guard) and not to allow the vital attractiveness to rule one’s actions.” (CWM 14: 284)

“But one must first be clear and sincere enough to see the conflict within oneself. Usually one doesn’t pay any attention to these things. One goes from one extreme to the other. You see, you can say, to put it in very simple words: one day I am good, the next day I am bad. And this seems quite natural.... Or even, sometimes for one hour you are good and the next hour you are wicked; or else, sometimes the whole day through one is good and suddenly one becomes wicked, for a minute very wicked, all the more wicked as one was good! Only, one doesn’t observe it, thoughts cross one’s mind, violent, bad, hateful things, like that... Usually one pays no attention to it. But this is what must be caught! As soon as it manifests, you must catch it like this (Mother makes a movement) with a very firm grip, and then hold it, hold it up to the light and say, ‘No! I don’t want you! I—don’t—want—you! I have nothing to do with this! You are going to get out of here, and you won’t return!’ ” (CWM 6:263–264)

“Q: Sweet Mother, how can we make our resolution very firm?

A: By wanting it to be very firm! (Laughter)

No, this seems like a joke... but it is absolutely true. One does not want it truly. There is always, if you... It is a lack of sincerity. If you look sincerely, you will see that you have decided that it will be like this, and then, beneath there is something which has not decided at all and is waiting for the second of hesitation in order to rush forward. If you are sincere, if you are sincere and get hold of the part which is hiding, waiting, not showing itself, which knows that there will come a second of indecision when it can rush out and make you do the thing you have decided not to do...

But if you really want it, nothing in the world can prevent you from doing what you want. It is because one doesn’t know how to will it. It is because one is divided in one’s will. If you are not divided in your will, I say that nothing, nobody in the world can make you change your will.” (CWM 6: 346–347)

“The same phenomenon occurs with moral difficulties. If one could succeed in destroying their remembrance, destroying in oneself the memory of the state one is in when in that difficulty, if one is sincere it would be the end of all difficulties for ever.” (CWM 6: 369)

“Then, don’t forget that even if you make sincere efforts, it is not in a day, not in a month, not in a year that you will reach the end of all these difficulties. When one begins, one must begin with an unshakable patience.” (CWM 4: 334)

“The world lives in falsehood, all relations between men have until now been based on falsehood and deceit. Diplomatic relations between nations are based on falsehood. They claim to want peace, and meanwhile they are arming themselves. Only a transparent sincerity in man and among nations can usher in a transformed world.

Auroville is the first attempt in this experiment. A new world will be born; if men are willing to make an effort for transformation, to seek for sincerity, it is possible. From animal to man, thousands of years were needed; today, with his mind, man can will and hasten a transformation towards a man who shall be God.

This transformation by the help of the mind—by self-analysis—is a first step; afterwards, it is necessary to transform the vital impulses: that is much more difficult, and especially to transform the physical. Every cell in our bodies must become conscious. This is the work I am doing here; it will enable the conquest of death. That is another story; that will be the humanity of the future, perhaps after hundreds of years, perhaps sooner. It will depend on men, on nations.

Auroville is the first step towards this goal.” (CWM 13: 268)

IV—The Obstacles That Must Be Overcome to Become Sincere

“The greatest enemies of a perfect sincerity are preferences (either mental, vital or physical) and preconceived ideas. It is these obstacles that must be overcome.” (CWM 14: 71)

“It helps only if one has the sincere will to change; if one sincerely has the will to change, it is a powerful help because it gives you the force to make the change, the fulcrum to make the change. But one must sincerely want to change.” (CWM 4: 349)

V—The Discipline of the Vital Requires Perfect Sincerity

“All need vital sincerity, it is the most difficult to have and the most needful.” (CWSA 29: 53)

“It is different parts of the being that have these different movements. It is, as you say, something in you, something in the vital that has the ‘insincerity’ or the attraction to the wrong confused condition; but this you should not regard as yourself, but as part of the old nature which has to be transformed.” (CWSA 31: 642)

“It is difficult for the ordinary Christian to be of a piece, because the teachings of Christ are on quite another plane from the consciousness of the intellectual and vital man trained by the education and society of Europe—the latter, even as a minister or priest, has never been called upon to practise what he preached in entire earnest. But it is difficult for the human nature anywhere to think, feel and act from one centre of true faith, belief or vision. The average Hindu considers the spiritual life the highest, reveres the Sannyasi, is moved by the Bhakta; but if one of the family circle leaves the world for spiritual life, what tears, arguments, remonstrances, lamentations! It is almost worse than if he had died a natural death. It is not conscious mental insincerity—they will argue like Pandits and go to Shastra to prove you in the wrong; it is unconsciousness, a vital insincerity which they are not aware of and which uses the reasoning mind as an accomplice.” (CWSA 29: 53–54)

“It [insincerity in the vital] can only be dangerous if the waking mind accepts it. All the same, so long as it remains in the subconscient, it keeps a seed of possibility—so it must be got out altogether.” (CWSA 31: 609)

“I can only say—it is your vital you have to change. Make it perfectly straight and clear and pure. Make it free from all selfishness, blindness, insincerity, anger, abhiman, self-indulgence, vital desire—and give it as a pure offering to the Mother.” (CWSA 32: 146)

“If there is this unconsciousness, you have to learn to be conscious in all your actions, so that the vital movements will no longer be able to deceive you or take any cover. You must make a point of being perfectly sincere in looking at these vital movements and seeing them as they are.” (CWSA 31: 105)

“If one looks at oneself very sincerely, very straightforwardly and very severely, one very quickly perceives that very few things, very few movements of consciousness are free from being mixed with desires. Even in what you take for a higher movement, there is always... no, happily not always, but most often there is a desire mixed. The desire of the sense of one’s importance, if only this, that kind of self-satisfaction, the satisfaction of being someone superior.” (CWM 6: 337–338)

“Q: How can one transform the vital?

A: The first step: will. Secondly, sincerity and aspiration. But will and aspiration are almost the same thing, one follows the other.

Then, perseverance.” (CWM 4: 247)

“Here we must mention the discipline of the vital. The vital being in us is the seat of impulses and desires, of enthusiasm and violence, of dynamic energy and desperate depressions, of passions and revolts. It can set everything in motion, build and realise; but it can also destroy and mar everything. Thus it may be the most difficult part to discipline in the human being. It is a long and exacting labour requiring great patience and perfect sincerity, for without sincerity you will deceive yourself from the very outset, and all endeavour for progress will be in vain.” (CWM 12: 6)

“If the vital is not to deceive you, you must not only be very mindful but your sincerity must also be almost miraculous—it is not to discourage you that I have used the word ‘miraculous’; on the contrary, it is in order to give you a greater aspiration for sincerity.” (CWM 4: 50)

“Sweet Mother,

How can we know that our acts, our thoughts and our aspirations are not tainted by vital desire, though they may seem right to our common sense?

It is a question of inner sincerity. Common sense is not a judge because it is a mental function of a rather inferior order.

Moreover, there is a very simple way of knowing. One has only to imagine that the thing one wants to do will not be done, and if this imagination creates the least uneasiness, then one can be sure of the presence of desire.” (CWM 16: 342)

“If the education of the vital is carried far enough, with perseverance and sincerity, there comes a time when, convinced of the greatness and beauty of the goal, the vital gives up petty and illusory sensorial satisfactions in order to win the divine delight.” (CWM 12: 57)

“Sincerity in the vital: the sure road to realisation.” (CWM 14: 355)

“With sincerity, make an effort for progress, and with patience, know how to await the result of your effort.” (CWM 14: 166)

“Never worry.

Do with sincerity all you do and leave the results to the Divine’s care.” (CWM 14: 222)

“Certainly—but then you must do it in all sincerity and not accept these movements of jealousy in any way.” (CWM 14: 261)

“The vital of some people calls always for disharmony, petty quarrels and confusion; they generally have also a kind of mania of persecution and believe that everybody is against them. To cure that is most difficult and requires a radical transformation of the nature.

The best, when dealing with them, is not to mind the reactions and to go on doing what one has to do with simplicity and sincerity. In this case, X has had from me the biggest scolding I ever gave him; perhaps it will have an effect.” (CWM 17: 239)

“If you want to change, you must first resolutely get rid of the defects of your vital being, persevering steadily, however difficult it may be or however long it may take, calling in always the divine help and compelling yourself always to be entirely sincere.

As for fitness and unfitness, nobody is entirely fit for this Yoga; one has to become fit by aspiration, by abhyasa, by sincerity and surrender. If you have always desired the spiritual life, it is the psychic part of you that desired it, but your vital has always come in the way. Establish a sincere will in the vital; do not allow personal desires and demands and selfishness and falsehood to mix in your sadhana; then alone the vital in you will become fit for the sadhana. Lately you seem to have made a more sincere endeavour; if you want it to succeed, the endeavour must become always purer and more steady and persistent. If you practise sincerely, you will get the help needed by you. ...

I write this much in answer to your letter because I find in it a beginning of vital sincerity which was not there before. The rest depends upon you. If you become vitally sincere, the help will be with you.” (CWSA 31: 108–109)

“It [vital sincerity] is the one-pointed will in the vital to be transformed.” (CWSA 31: 113)

“Why should you suppose it [the effort of sadhana] is vain? The purification of the vital takes a long time because until all the parts are free, none is quite free and because they use a multitude of movements which have to be changed or enlightened,—and moreover there is a great habit of persistence and resistance in the habitual movements of the nature. One therefore easily thinks that one has made no progress,—but all sincere and sustained effort of purification has its result and after a time the progress made will become evident.” (CWSA 31: 136–137)

“There is certainly a sincere will to change. This resistance of the lower vital is usual in everybody—it is the main difficulty in Yoga. If it were not there, the change would be easy. But once the steady mental will is there, it is a question of time and steady sadhana. With that the change is sure.” (CWSA 31: 158)

“It is perfectly possible to get rid of this Maya of the vital demand, if one wishes to do it,—but the will to do it must be sincere. If he is sincere in his will, he will certainly get help and protection.” (CWSA 29: 349)

“Always the vital nature is not at first willing and always when it is thwarted or asked to change, it creates this depression by its revolt or refusal of consent. You have to insist till it recognises the truth and is willing to be transformed and to accept the Mother’s help and grace. If the mind is sincere and the psychic aspiration complete and true, the vital can always be made to change.” (CWSA 32: 301)

“Surrender everything, reject all other desires or interests, call on the divine Shakti to open the vital nature and bring down calm, peace, light, Ananda into all the centres. Aspire, await with faith and patience the result. All depends on a complete sincerity and an integral consecration and aspiration.” (CWSA 29: 76)

VI—The Attitude of Sincerity in Work

“The best way to work without getting tired is to offer the work you do (whatever work it is) to the Divine and to find in the Divine the support you need—for the Divine’s Force is inexhaustible and He answers always to whatever offer is made to Him sincerely.

Then, when you will feel that it is the Divine’s Force that has done the work in you and through you, in your sincerity you will know that the merit is His and not yours—so there is no more reason to be proud.” (CWM 14: 315)

“It [entering the Yoga] is with the consciousness of the Mother that he must unite and there too a sincere self-consecration in mind and heart and will is the means for it. The work given by the Mother is always meant as a field for that self-consecration; it has to be done as an offering to her so that through the self-offering one may come to feel her Force acting and her presence.” (CWSA 35: 547–548)

“Mother,

I have worked in the Dining Room for 30 years now. If you think it would be better to have younger people for the pressing needs of the future, I shall willingly step aside—I mean it.

In my work I did not plan at all. I left it to you and you never failed me. Let this experience grow.

A: For the sake of the work, it is better if you continue because you can call and feel me, rather than a youngster perhaps full of unused energy but who believes that he is doing the work. There may be some other good reasons for you to continue the work, like honesty and sincerity, etc. but that need not be mentioned.

With love and blessings.” (CWM 17: 315)

“It seems to me that the proof of sincerity is in work and not in planning.

This is exactly what I have tried to make them understand—but the tendency to plan and talk seems to be too strong to be checked. Let us hope some work also will be done.” (CWM 14: 321)

“Q: Today You gave me a flower meaning ‘Disinterested work’. So I must find the interest that lies hidden behind every kind of work.

A: The flower means precisely: all work that is done, in all sincerity, in consecration to the Divine.” (CWM 17: 145)

“It is elsewhere that you must prepare yourself, not here. You have not been asked to give yourself up to the service of the Divine in any outward or physical sense, but to prepare yourself inwardly by taking all life and all work wherever you are as a sacrifice, an offering to the Divine. That, if you are sincere in your seeking, you can do anywhere.” (CWSA 35: 574)

“All you need to be concerned with is your own work and sadhana, whether you do it well and sincerely and with the right spirit.” (CWSA 32: 417)

VII—To Act Sincerely According to the Divine Will

“We have said that there is only one safety, never to act except in harmony with the divine Will. There is one question: how to know that it is the divine Will which makes you act? ... to hear it you must be absolutely sincere, for if you are not sincere, you will begin by deceiving yourself and you will hear nothing at all except the voice of your ego and then you will commit with assurance (thinking that it is the real small voice) the most awful stupidities. But if you are sincere, the way is sure. It is not even a voice, not even a sensation, it is something extremely subtle—a slight indication. When everything goes well, that is, when you do nothing contrary to the divine Will, you will not perhaps have any definite impression, everything will seem to you normal.” (CWM 4: 87)

“You may not know at every moment what is the best thing to do or how to do it, but you can place your will at the disposal of the Divine to do the best possible, the best thing possible. You will see it will have marvellous results. Do this with consciousness, sincerity and perseverance, and you will find yourself getting along with gigantic strides. It is like that, isn’t it? One must do things with all the ardour of one’s soul, with all the strength of one’s will; do at every moment the best possible, the best thing possible.” (CWM 4: 117)

“When I told you just a while ago that you must aspire with a great ardour to do the best possible, at every moment the best thing possible, you could have asked me, ‘That is all very well. But how to know?’ Well, it is not necessary to know! If you take this attitude with sincerity, you will know at each moment what you have to do, and it is this which is so wonderful! According to your sincerity, the inspiration is more and more precise, more and more exact.” (CWM 4: 119–120)

“When one is very attentive and very sincere, one can have an indication, an inner but perceptible indication, of the value of what one has undertaken or the action one is doing. Truly, for someone who has an entire goodwill, that is, who in all sincerity, with the whole conscious part of his being, wants to do the right thing in the right way, there is always an indication; if for some reason or other one launches upon a more or less fatal action, one always feels an uneasiness in the region of the solar plexus; an uneasiness which is not violent, which doesn’t compel recognition dramatically, but is very perceptible to someone who is attentive — something like a sort of regret, like a lack of assent. It may go as far as a kind of refusal to collaborate. But I must stress it, without violence, without brutal self-assertion: it makes no noise, does not hurt, it is at the most a slight uneasiness. And if you disregard it, if you pay no attention, attach no importance to it, after a little while it will completely disappear and there will be nothing any longer.

It is not that it increases with the growing error, on the contrary, it disappears and the consciousness becomes veiled.

Therefore, one cannot give this as a sure sign, for if you have disobeyed this little indication several times, well, it will no longer come. But I tell you that if in all sincerity you are very attentive to it, then it will be a very sure and precious guide.

But if there is an uneasiness, it comes at the beginning, almost immediately, and when it doesn’t show itself, well, no matter what one has started, it is preferable to do it to the very end so that the experience may be complete, unless one receives, as I said, an absolutely precise and categorical indication that it should not be done.” (CWM 9: 31–32)

“Q: Before undertaking any action one tries to know whether the impulse comes from the Mother or not, but generally one doesn’t have enough discernment to know it and yet one acts. Can one know from the result of the action whether it came from the Mother or not?

A: One does not have the discernment because one does not care to have it! Listen, I don’t think there is a single instance in which one does not find within oneself something very clear, but you must sincerely want to know—we always come back to the same thing—you must sincerely want it. The first condition is not to begin thinking about the subject and building all sorts of ideas: opposing ideas, possibilities, and entering into a formidable mental activity. First of all, you must put the problem as though you were putting it to someone else, then keep silent, remain like that, immobile. ... The majority of men are not silent enough or attentive enough to be aware of it, for it makes no noise. But I assure you it is there in everybody and if one is truly sincere and succeeds in being truly quiet, one will become aware of it.” (CWM 4: 385)

“The first effect of Yoga, however, is to take away the mental control, and the hungers that lie dormant are suddenly set free, they rush up and invade the being. So long as this mental control has not been replaced by the Divine control, there is a period of transition when your sincerity and surrender will be put to the test. The strength of such impulses as those of sex lies usually in the fact that people take too much notice of them; they protest too vehemently and endeavour to control them by coercion, hold them within and sit upon them. But the more you think of a thing and say, ‘I don’t want it, I don’t want it’, the more you are bound to it. What you should do is to keep the thing away from you, to dissociate from it, take as little notice of it as possible and, even if you happen to think of it, remain indifferent and unconcerned.” (CWM 3: 5)

“Of course, you should be eager to know whether you are acting in accordance with the divine Will, that is the first point, naturally, without which you can know nothing at all. But once you are eager and you pay attention, everything seems to you normal, natural, then all of a sudden, you feel a little uneasiness somewhere in the head, in the heart or even in the stomach—generally one doesn’t give it a thought; you may feel it several times in the day but you reject it without giving it any attention; but it is no longer quite the same; then, at that moment, you must stop, no matter what you may be doing, and look, and if you are sincere, you will notice a small black spot (a tiny wicked idea, a tiny false movement, a small arbitrary decision) and that’s the source of the uneasiness. You will notice then that the little black spot comes from the ego which is full of preferences; generally it does what it likes; the things it likes are called good and those it does not are called bad—this clouds your judgment. It is difficult to judge under these conditions. If you truly want to know, you must draw back a step and look, and you will know then that it is this small movement of the ego which is the cause of the uneasiness. You will see that it is a tiny thing curled back upon itself; you will have the impression of being in front of something hard which resists or is black. Then with patience, from the height of your consciousness, you must explain to this thing its mistake, and in the end it will disappear. I do not say that you will succeed all at once the very first day, but if you try sincerely, you will always end with success. And if you persevere, you will see that all of a sudden you are relieved of a mass of meanness and ugliness and obscurity which was preventing you from flowering in the light. It is those things which make you shrivel up, prevent you from widening yourself, opening out in a light where you have the impression of being very comfortable. If you make this effort, you will see finally that you are very far from the point where you had begun, the things you did not feel, did not understand, have become clear. If you are resolved, you are sure to succeed.” (CWM 4: 87–88)

“And to the extent one discovers this within oneself and says sincerely, ‘It must change’, one finds that one acquires a sort of inner clear-sightedness, one gradually becomes aware of what goes on in others, and instead of getting angry when they are not quite what one would like them to be, one begins to understand how things happen, how it is that one is ‘like this’, how reactions are produced.... Then, with the indulgence of knowledge, one smiles. One no longer judges severely, one offers the difficulty in oneself or in others, whatever may be its centre of manifestation, to the divine Consciousness, asking for its transformation.” (CWM 4: 337)

“Do not try to give a material excuse when you feel a little depression or a slight uneasiness. When you stop and look about for the reason, be absolutely straight and sincere. At first your mind will construct a very plausible and beautiful explanation. Do not accept it, but look beyond and ask, ‘What is it that is behind this movement? Why am I doing this?’ Finally you will discover, hidden in a corner, the little ripple—a slight wrong turn or twist in your attitude that is causing the trouble or disturbance.” (CWM 3: 9)

“For the laying bare of each falsehood is in itself a victory — each acknowledgment of error is the demolition of one of the lords of Darkness. It may be an acknowledgment to oneself, provided it is absolutely honest and is no subtle regret apt to be forgotten the next moment and without the strength to make an unbreakable resolution not to repeat the mistake. Or it may be the acknowledgment to the Divine embodied in the Guru. As a result of direct personal confession to the Guru, your resolution remains no longer your own, because, if you are sincere, the Divine’s fiat goes forth in your favour.” (CWM 3: 141)

“Because at first you begin by getting rid of the major desires, those that are most obvious and trouble you so much that you cannot even have any illusions about them; then come subtler desires that take the form of things that have to be done, that are necessary, even at times of commands from within, and it requires time and much sincerity to discover and overcome them; at last it seems as if you had done away with these wretched desires in the material world, in external things, in the world of feelings, in the emotions and sentiments, in the mental world as regards ideas, and then you find them again in the spiritual world, and there they are far more dangerous, more subtle, more penetrating and much more invisible and covered by such a saintly appearance that one dare not call them desires.” (CWM 3: 268)

“Mother, here it is said that the light of truth is not always at one’s disposal...

It is always there; but one can’t always use it.

But if...

It is always there; it is everywhere; but it is not at your disposal in the sense that you don’t know how to make use of it.

But if one went to you to ask how?

Ah! But one must not ask personal questions. Of course if you ask me, ‘What should I do?’—anyone at all among you—I shall tell you, ‘My children, it is very easy, you have only to call me, and then when you feel the contact, well, you put it upon the thing till that part has understood.’

But here too you must know, it hurts a little; I am warning you, you see, because the thing is clinging somewhere, and in order to pull it out you must have courage; and when you put the light of truth, well, it burns, sometimes it smarts, you see; you must know how to bear it. The sincerity must be sufficient to... instead of shutting yourself up again and saying, ‘Oh! It hurts’, you must open very wide and receive fully.” (CWM 7: 88)

“Q: How to recognise that a particular thought, feeling or impulse to action has come from the Mother herself and not from some universal force or anything else? If it is apparently a force from the Falsehood it can be recognised as such, but there are many others of a different character and sometimes one goes on thinking that they are prompted by the Mother from within.

A: It can only be done by discrimination, care, sincerity, a constant control with regard to the mind’s movements and the growth of a certain kind of psychic tact which detects any mental imitation or false suggestion of its being the Mother’s.” (CWSA 32: 228)

VIII—Who Is Perfectly Sincere

“Can one say that total sincerity and the abolition of the ego are closely interdependent?

Only the Supreme Lord is perfectly sincere.

And when the ego is abolished, only the Supreme Lord exists.” (CWM 16: 381)

“I repeat, the Divine when he takes on the burden of terrestrial nature, takes it fully, sincerely and without any conjuring tricks or pretence.” (CWSA 35: 418)

“Some people think they have achieved absolute sincerity.

If you are sure you have achieved absolute sincerity, you can be sure that you are immersed in falsehood!” (CWM 15: 301)

“When you are sure that you have attained absolute sincerity, you may be certain that you have plunged into falsehood.” (CWM 14: 69)

“It is no use thinking that one is very sincere. It is useless

to think that one is not sincere. What is useful is to be sincere.” (CWM 14: 69)

“Only those who are already very sincere know that they are not completely sincere.” (CWM 14: 69)

“There are many places where insincerity may be lodged, and hence it should never be said as so often people say to me, ‘I am perfectly sincere.’ It is like those who assure you, ‘I have never told a lie.’ If you were perfectly sincere, you would be the Divine, if you had never told a lie, that is, something that is not true, you would be the Truth! So, as you are neither the Divine nor the Truth in fact (you are that in essence but not in fact), you have always a long way to go to reach the Truth and sincerity.” (CWM 4: 252–253)

“It is quite certain that to be able to tell the truth without difficulty, it is best always to act in such a way that we have no need to conceal anything we do. And for that, in our actions of every moment, we should remember that we are in the presence of the Divine.

For straightforwardness of speech also demands straightforwardness of actions; and a sincere man is one who shuns all falsehood in what he says and

all hypocrisy in what he does.” (CWM 2: 218)

“There are perhaps a hundred men on earth who are totally sincere.” (CWM 13: 268)

“All people, whether occidental or oriental, are alike in their deepest feelings; they are different in their way of thinking. Sincerity, for example, is a quality which is the same everywhere. Those who are sincere, to whichever nation they belong, are all sincere in the same way. Only the forms given to this sincerity vary. The mind works in different ways in different peoples, but the heart is the same everywhere; the heart is a much truer reality, and the differences belong to the superficial parts. As soon as you go deep enough, you meet something that is one in all. All meet in the Divine.” (CWM 3: 12)

“All these things depend on the person, the condition, the circumstances.

The Mother uses the method you speak of, the Mahakali method, (1) with those in whom there is a great eagerness to progress and a fundamental sincerity somewhere even in the vital, (2) with those whom she meets intimately and who, she knows, will not resent or misunderstand her severity or take it for a withdrawal of kindness or grace but will regard it as a true grace and a help to their sadhana.” (CWSA 32: 353)

“The only thing that is truly effective is the change of consciousness; it is the inner liberation through an intimate, constant union, absolute and inevitable, with the vibration of the supramental forces. The preoccupation of every second, the will of all the elements of the being, the aspiration of the entire being, including all the cells of the body, is this union with the supramental forces, the divine forces. And there is no longer any need at all to be preoccupied with what the consequences will be. What has to be in the play of the universal forces and their manifestation will be, quite naturally, spontaneously, automatically, there is no need to be preoccupied with it. The only thing that matters is the constant, total, complete contact—constant, yes, constant—with the Force, the Light, the Truth, the Power, and that ineffable delight of the supramental consciousness.

That is sincerity. All the rest is an imitation, it is almost a part one plays for oneself.

Perfect purity is to be, to be ever more and more, in a self perfecting becoming. One must never pretend that one is: one must be, spontaneously.

This is sincerity.” (CWM 9: 119–120)

IX—The Avalanche of Troubles Is Always for Sincere People

“If you come to the spiritual life with a sincere aspiration, sometimes an avalanche of unpleasant things falls upon you: you quarrel with your best friends, your family kicks you out of the house, you lose what you thought you had gained.... I knew someone who had come to India with a great aspiration and after a very long effort towards knowledge and even towards Yoga. ... This gentleman had a golden pencil which his grandmother had given him to which he was attached as the most precious thing in the world. It was fixed to his chain. When he landed at one of these ports .. they used to get into small boats and the boats took you ashore. And so this gentleman had to jump from the gangway of the ship into the boat. He missed his step, somehow got back his balance, but he made a sudden movement and the little gold pencil dropped into the sea and went straight down into the depths. He was at first very much aggrieved, but he told himself: ‘Why, that is the effect of India: I am freed from my attachments....’ It is for very sincere people that the thing takes such a form. Fundamentally, the avalanche of troubles is always for sincere people. Those who are not sincere receive things with the most beautiful bright colours just to deceive them, and then in the end to enable them to find out that they are mistaken! But when someone has big troubles, it proves that he has reached a certain degree of sincerity.” (CWM 5: 157–158)

“After all, it is quite possible—I am joking a little—it is quite possible that if they have even the least bit of sincerity—not too much, for that is tiring! just a little sincerity—that will give them a few good knocks to make them go faster. This is possible. In fact, I think, this is what will happen.

But indeed, this attitude... this attitude, which is a little too mercenary, is not usually very profitable. If one aspires sincerely and if one has difficulties, perhaps these difficulties will diminish. Let us hope so.

(Turning to the disciple) So this is what you can tell them: be sincere and you will be helped.” (CWM 8: 132–133)

“It is because both your mind and vital have become sincere that the attack is strong and seems to you abnormal. Before as you were yielding from time to time, the part that wants was not acutely insistent and, when it pressed, it was not so acutely felt by the rest of the vital nature. It is your mental, psychic and higher vital beings that now stand completely apart from it. It is your physical vital that still keeps the desire and is pushed from time to time by opposite forces to make the desire active. It was also this desire that created the physical disturbance from which you suffered a few days ago. You must get rid of this desire of the lower vital altogether.” (CWSA 31: 263)

“When there is something in the nature that has to be got over, it is always drawing on itself incidents that put it to the test till the sadhak has overcome and is free. At least it is a thing that often happens especially if the person is making a sincere effort to overcome. One does not always know whether it is the hostiles who are trying to break the resolution or putting it to the test (for they claim the right to do it) or whether it is, let us say, the gods who are doing it so as to press and hasten the progress or insisting on the reality and thoroughness of the change aspired after. Perhaps it helps most when one can take it from the latter standpoint.” (CWSA 31: 653)

“If you are worried, grieved or even discouraged by the malicious stupidities that men say about you, you will not advance far on the way. And such things come to you, not because you are unlucky or because your lot is not a happy one, but because, on the contrary, the divine Consciousness and the divine Grace take your resolution seriously and allow the circumstances to become a touchstone on your way, to see whether your resolution is sincere and whether you are strong enough to face the difficulties.” (CWM 3: 282)

X—Sincerity in Fight Against the Adverse Forces

“This happens because the world as it is at present is still largely under the influence of the adverse forces, particularly the vital force which is dynamic and generally makes you act. This force is largely under the influence of the adverse vital, that is, forces which like to hurt, destroy, damage  ... That is why it is easier, whilst if one wants to react, refuses to become the instrument of these forces, one must fight hard, be very strong, very straight, very pure, very sincere, and above all, not egoistic.” (CWM 5: 232–233)

“But with the adverse forces, if you are in the least sincere and observe yourself attentively, you become aware that it is something in the being which is responding to an influence, an impulse, a suggestion, even something at times very concrete, which enters and produces similar vibrations in the being.

There, now. That is the problem.

The remedy?... It is always the same: goodwill, sincerity, insight, patience—oh! an untiring patience and a perseverance which assures you that what you have not succeeded in doing today, you will succeed in doing another time, and makes you go on trying until you do succeed.

And this brings us back to Sri Aurobindo’s sentence: if this control seems to you quite impossible today, well, that means that not only will it be possible, but that it will be realised later.” (CWM 8: 394)

“Goodwill, sincerity, purity and beauty are things which make them disappear. So they [Asuric beings] hate these things.” (CWM 5: 99)

“You know the story of Durga, don’t you? Durga who every year has to destroy her asura; and always she is compelled to begin again. It goes on in this way till the end of the reign allotted to the titans. When they will be banished from this

world, it will not be thus any longer. But till then, that is as long as they are useful (as I have said in this book) for intensifying the aspiration, clarifying the consciousness, for putting to the test the sincerity of people, they will be there. The day the test will not be needed, the day the sincerity will be pure and self existent they will disappear. Then that day, Durga will no longer need to begin her battle over again every year.

Q: Would it not be better to change them?

A: Ah! my child, certainly it would be better, much better.

But then...

It is a domain of which I have a thorough experience. After forty years of sustained effort I have found out that it is absolutely impossible to change anyone unless in truth he wants it sincerely. If he does not set himself to the task with an absolute sincerity, well—I have tried for forty years, one can try it for a hundred and forty years, it will be the same thing—he won’t stir. It is the very character of these beings to be perfectly satisfied with themselves, and they do not desire, they have not the least intention to change! Even now, among the beings who are concerned with the earth, the asuric beings, the greatest of the asuras who is still busy with the earth at present, who is the asura of falsehood and calls himself the ‘Lord of the Nations’—he has taken a beautiful name, he is Lord of the Nations—it is he, wherever there is something going wrong, you may be sure it is he or a representative of his who is there. It is also perfectly sure that very soon his hour will come and all will be over for him, that he will have to disappear. And he absolutely refuses to change.” (CWM 5: 96–97)

“Q: But how can we know [that these forces are adverse forces] ?

Ah! The easiest way, when you have a Guru, is to go and ask him. It is within the reach of everyone. It is enough to have faith in one’s Guru, to go and find him and ask him; he will tell you, for he indeed knows.

If you do not have a Guru, then it is a little more difficult, because these forces are very clever; they do not put on a look of catastrophe and misery and wickedness, for you will immediately find it out and will not let yourself be taken in; generally they come in the garb of a friend. If you are very sincere, soon you notice some little indications, like small suggestions that satisfy your vanity or awaken in you doubts or make you a bit unconscious of what exactly is to be done—very tiny things. If you are very sincere, you see through them; particularly if you are alert enough not to allow yourself to be deceived by compliments or attempts that encourage you in these satisfactions of amour-propre. Things that give just a little encouragement to your vanity—that is the surest sign; something that makes you think: ‘After all, I am not so bad. All that I do, I do well. My attempt is very praiseworthy. My sincerity is above all reproach, etc.’ You become more and more self satisfied and then there you may be sure. But even there, it does not always take these forms.” (CWM 5: 155–156)

“Q: Sometimes one cannot distinguish adverse forces from other forces.

A: That happens when one is quite unconscious.

There are only two cases when this is possible: you are either very unconscious of the movements of your being—you have not studied, you have not observed, you do not know what is happening within you—or you are absolutely insincere, that is, you play the ostrich in order not to see the reality of things: you hide your head, you hide your observation, your knowledge and you say, ‘It is not there.’ But indeed the latter I hope is not in question here. Hence it is simply because one has not the habit of observing oneself that one is so unconscious of what is happening within.” (CWM 5: 101)

“I had these... people who, in a moment of lucidity or sincerity, a second of sincerity, had asked to be freed from the hostile emanation which made them act. And then, in that moment of sincerity this emanation went out of them, and without hurting the body it could be caught and destroyed. That has happened several times.

Then for some days the being is so happy... and it feels free, feels good, feels luminous.... And then suddenly, it tells itself, ‘But I no longer have any power! I don’t know any longer, can’t do anything any longer, I am altogether an ordinary being!’  And then, ‘But this is not at all good, it was much better before!’ And so, as these adverse forces are countless—these entities exist in thousands and thousands, you see, they are there swarming around people, only waiting for an opportunity to be able to rush into someone—immediately one reabsorbs one’s dose and becomes once again what one was before, sometimes worse. And so the comedy begins all over again.” (CWM 6: 247–248)

“The hostile forces are there in the world to maintain the Ignorance—they were there in the sadhana because they had the right to test the sincerity of the sadhaks and their power and will to cleave to the Divine and overcome all difficulties. But this is only so long as the higher Light has not descended into the physical ...” (CWSA 35: 640)

“Hostile forces are tolerated in the world only because they put man’s sincerity to the test. The day that man becomes integrally sincere, they will pass away, for there will no longer be any reason for their existence.” (CWM 15: 21)

“This comes back to the question why the adverse forces have the right to interfere, to harass you. But this is precisely the test necessary for your sincerity.” (CWM 4: 353)

“The sadhaks of the Asram are not spotless Saints or perfect born Yogis but men who carry in them their human nature and typify each in his own way what is in the world and what has to be changed. The influence of the hostile Forces was on them as on all human beings in a less or greater degree, and so long as they open themselves to that influence, it works on them as on the world,—it is only by a perfect sincerity and by a perfect opening to the Light that it can disappear. In that sense the presence of these forces is a test and the world that has to be changed being what it is and their nature being what it is, it could not be otherwise.” (CWSA 35: 642–643)

“In reality I am turning more and more towards something where the role of the adverse forces will be reduced to that of an examiner; that is to say, they are there to test the sincerity of your spiritual seeking.” (CWM 15: 345)

“The three types of examination are: those set by the forces of Nature, those set by spiritual and divine forces, and those set by hostile forces. These last are the most deceptive in their appearance and to avoid being caught unawares and unprepared requires a state of constant watchfulness, sincerity and humility.” (CWM 14: 42)

“Endurance and plasticity, cheerfulness and fearlessness are the qualities specially needed for the examinations of physical nature.

Aspiration, trust, idealism, enthusiasm and generous self-giving, for spiritual examinations.

Vigilance, sincerity and humility for the examinations from hostile forces.” (CWM 14: 43)

“Each person carries with himself in his atmosphere what Sri Aurobindo calls the ‘Censors’; they are in a way permanent delegates of the adverse forces. Their role is to criticise mercilessly every act, every thought, the slightest movement of the consciousness, and to bring you face to face with the most hidden springs of your actions, to bring to light the slightest vibration of a lower kind accompanying what seem to be your purest and highest thoughts and acts.

This is not a question of morality. These gentlemen are not moralising agents although they know very well how to make use of morality! And when they are dealing with a scrupulous conscience, they can harass it without mercy, whispering to it at every minute, ‘You should not have done this, you should not have done that, you should have done this thing instead, said that thing; now you have spoilt everything, committed an irreparable mistake; see how everything is irretrievably lost now through your fault.’ They may even take possession of some people’s consciousness: you chase away the thought, and there! it comes back two minutes later; you chase it away again and it is still there, all the time hammering away at you.

Every time I meet these gentlemen I welcome them, for they compel you to be absolutely sincere, they track down the most subtle hypocrisy and make you at every moment face your most secret vibrations. And they are intelligent!—their intelligence infinitely surpasses ours: they know everything, they know how to turn against you the least thought, the least argument, the least action, with a truly wonderful subtlety. Nothing escapes them. But what gives a hostile tinge to these beings is the fact that they are first and foremost defeatists. They always paint the picture for you in the darkest colours; if need be they distort your own intentions. They are truly instruments of sincerity. But they always forget one thing, deliberately, something that they cast far behind as if it did not exist: the divine Grace. They forget prayer, that spontaneous prayer which suddenly springs up from the depths of the being like an intense call, and brings down the Grace and changes the course of things.” (CWM 9: 279–280)

“The water is the symbol of the power of purification and no hostile being or force can resist this power handled with goodwill and sincerity.” (CWM 12: 245)

XI—The Divine Has Taken the Burden of Terrestrial Nature Sincerely

“I repeat, the Divine when he takes on the burden of terrestrial nature, takes it fully, sincerely and without any conjuring tricks or pretence. If he has something behind him which emerges always out of the coverings, it is the same thing in essence, even if greater in degree, that there is behind others—and it is to awaken that that he is there.” (CWSA 28: 478)

“It was with that object that the Mother once prayed to the Divine that whatever difficulties, dangers, sufferings were necessary for the path might be laid on her rather than on others. It has been so far heard that as a result of daily and terrible struggles for years those who put an entire and sincere confidence in her are able to follow the sunlit path and even those who cannot, yet when they do put the trust find their path suddenly easy and, if it becomes difficult again, it is only when distrust, revolt, abhiman, or other darknesses come upon them. The sunlit path is not altogether a fable.” (CWSA 29: 471–472)

“The supramental is not only Truth itself, but also the

very negation of falsehood. The supramental will never come down, settle and manifest in a consciousness harbouring falsehood.

Naturally the first condition for conquering falsehood is to stop telling lies, though this is only a preliminary step. An absolute, integral sincerity must finally be established in the being and all its movements if the goal is at all to be attained.” (CWM 15: 90)

“You should never doubt about the reality and sincerity of our feeling towards you, mine and the Mother’s—for it creates a veil and separates, where there should be no separation, and it is a first barrier against that openness which is necessary if one is to receive fully or even at all from the Guru.” (CWSA 32: 101)

“Q: I am overwhelmed at the patience and compassion with which you put up with our insincerities, disobediences and loosenesses.

A: Human nature is like that in its very grain; so if we are not patient, there would be little hope of its changing. But there is something else in the human being which is sincere and can be a force for the change. The difficulty in people like X is to get at that something (it is

so covered up) and get it to act.” (CWSA 32: 120–121)

“But the Mother is not blind; she knows very well the nature of all the sadhaks, their faults as well as their merits; she knows too what human nature is and how these things come and that the human way of dealing with them is not the true way and changes nothing. It is why she has patience and love and charity for all, not for some alone, who are sincere in their work or their sadhana.” (CWSA 32: 390)

“What you say about those whom we receive—that if one part in them sincerely desires the Divine, we give them their chance—is quite true. If we demanded more at the beginning, exceedingly few would be able even to commence their journey towards the Divine.” (CWSA 35: 548)

“You can write to him that when someone has a sincere and strong call for the sadhana Sri Aurobindo does not refuse to accept him. But it may be that he has first to prepare himself before he can face the full difficulties of the Path. As for leaving all it would be premature to do so before one is sufficiently advanced on the way to make such a step spiritually profitable; too early done, it often creates more difficulties than it removes.” (CWSA 35: 551–552)

“There is no reason, no just reason for your indulging the state of mind which is expressed in your letter. You write as if you were not accepted and there was no hope for you. That is not so. Those who sincerely give themselves to me, cannot be rejected.” (CWSA 36: 407)

“That is why the Mother and I always give time for the soul to grow upon the other parts and we do not mind if it takes time, provided there is a central sincerity and will —as certainly there is in you. Do not be impatient or easily discouraged because things do not go fast. Aspire, try to keep yourself in the sunshine of confidence and let the seed grow.” (CWSA 32: 117)

“[MAHASARASWATI is] Kind, smiling, close and helpful, not easily turned away or discouraged, insistent even after repeated failure, her hand sustains our every step on condition that we are single in our will and straightforward and sincere; for a double mind she will not tolerate and her revealing irony is merciless to drama and histrionics and self-deceit and pretence.” (CWSA 32: 23)

“The equal Divine Presence in all of us makes no other preliminary condition, if once this integral self-giving has been made in faith and in sincerity and with a fundamental completeness. All have access to this gate, all can enter into this temple: our mundane distinctions disappear in the mansion of the All-lover. There the virtuous man is not preferred, nor the sinner shut out from the Presence; together by this road the Brahmin pure of life and exact in observance of the law and the outcaste born from a womb of sin and sorrow and rejected of men can travel and find an equal and open access to the supreme liberation and the highest dwelling in the Eternal.” (CWSA 19: 334)

XII—The Measure of the Soul’s Sincerity

“I mean by the measure of the soul’s sincerity a yearning after the Divine and its aspiration towards the higher life.” (CWSA 29: 55–56)

“He feels closer to him who has made mistakes, who is conscious of his faults and has the sense of his weakness, and aspires sincerely to come out of it all—He feels perhaps closer to him than to one who has never made a mistake and is satisfied with his external superiority over other human beings.” (CWM 5: 349)

“Because, before one reaches the total union, the total expression, there will always be this invasion of external things which will try to enter you and spoil all the work. So, the necessary, indispensable condition is a constant vigilance. Do not sleep with satisfaction under the pretext that you have once made your choice: ‘Oh! Now it is all right, everything is all right.’ In principle everything is all right; in the sincerity of your choice lies also the guarantee of its duration. But for the sincerity to be perfect and the choice unshakable, one must never sleep—I don’t mean you must not sleep physically, I mean the consciousness must not sleep!” (CWM 4: 326)

XIII—Messages of the Mother on Sincerity to Different Institutions

Sincerity messages for Auroville

(Significance of the twelve underground rooms which will radiate from the Matrimandir foundation)

“Sincerity, Humility, Gratitude, Perseverance, Aspiration, Receptivity, Progress, Courage, Goodness, Generosity, Equality, Peace.” July 1972 (CWM 13: 226)

(Message for the concreting of the Matrimandir foundation floor)

“Let us all work with a growing sincerity for the manifestation of the Divine Truth.” (CWM 13: 226)

(Message for the Auroville Liaison Office, established to raise funds and screen persons interested in visiting or living in Auroville)

“To be at the head of the Liaison Office one must feel absolutely equal towards all and every nation.

A complete sincerity is required in this attitude.” (CWM 13: 229)

(Message for the inauguration of the Auroville blockmaking unit)

“To do always our best in all sincerity.

To be always our best in all sincerity.” (CWM 13: 231)

“At the service of the Divine in full receptivity and sincerity.” (CWM 13: 235)

“For, in one’s action, one must be free from all social conventions, all moral prejudices. However, this does not mean that one should lead a life of licence and dissoluteness. On the contrary, one imposes on oneself a rule that is far stricter than all social rules, for it tolerates no hypocrisy and demands a perfect sincerity.” (CWM 12: 53–54)

MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER’S INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL, DELHI

“The Mother’s School. Sincerity.” (CWM 12: 115)

“The measure of the sincerity is the measure of the success.” (CWM 12: 115)

MESSAGE FOR THE INAUGURATION OF SRI MIRAMBIKA HIGH SCHOOL, AHMEDABAD

“Faith and Sincerity are the twin agents of success.” (CWM 12: 115)

The New Age Association ELEVENTH SEMINAR: 30 April 1967

“Q: What is the need of the hour?

A: Sincerity.

Do not try to deceive the Divine.” (CWM 12: 304)

TWENTY-SEVENTH SEMINAR: 25 February 1973

“How to collaborate in all sincerity in showing to the world that man can be a true servant of the Divine?

A: By being a true servant of the Divine.” (CWM 12: 315–316)

XIV—With the Descent of Supramental a Little Sincerity Becomes Miraculous in Its Result

“It is, as it were, to give an idea of the change in the world by the descent of the Supramental. Truly things that were neutral become absolute: a little error becomes categorical in its consequences, and a little sincerity, a little true aspiration becomes miraculous in its result. The values have intensified in people, and even from the material point of view the smallest fault, the very smallest, has big consequences, and the least sincerity in the aspiration has wonderful results. The values have intensified, become precise.” (CWM 11: 314)

“Q: What is the right attitude to stick on to this path till the Supramental Truth is realised?

“A: There is the psychic condition and sincerity and devotion to the Mother.” (CWM 6: 120)

XV—Short Summary

How To Become ABSOLUTELY SINCERE

I—Why Absolute Sincerity Is Insisted in Yoga

1.      Human beings for the most part have the inveterate habit of deceiving themselves

2.      They deceive themselves with a perfect insincerity

3.      Insincerity is in all men

4.      Man’s very nature makes him insincere for he is constantly deceiving himself, hiding the truth from himself, making excuses for himself

5.      Man’s insincerity prevents the Divine Force from descending or from being felt

6.      The world lives in falsehood and all relations between men have until now been based on falsehood and deceit

7.      Sincerity is demanded because man’s nature, has a spontaneous tendency to give a favourable explanation for everything he thinks, feels, says and does

8.      There is always, somewhere in the being, something which prefers to deceive itself

9.      Otherwise the light is there, always ready to guide, but you shut your eyes in order not to see it

10.      If you are not absolutely sincere with yourself, you will never make any progress

11.      If you try to cover up your imperfections and failings, you will never make any progress

12.      If you are not absolutely sincere you will always remain what you are throughout all your life

13.      If you want to grow out of this primitive unconscious state into a progressive consciousness, the most important thing is sincerity

14.      Don’t think that there are people to whom this rule does not apply, for you cannot live in the physical world without having a share in the physical nature and physical nature is essentially a mixture

15.      When you become absolutely sincere, that there is nothing in yourself that is absolutely unmixed

16.      Without this striving for absolute sincerity, the defect, the little shadow, will stay in a corner biding its time to come out

17.      Before the Eternal Consciousness a drop of sincerity has more value than an ocean of pretension and hypocrisy

II—It Is Difficult to Be Sincere

1.      Whatever path one follows and if one wants the path to be perfect, it is always difficult

2.      If one wants to follow perfectly the path then one has to follow it with perfect sincerity

3.      Perfect sincerity is never to try to deceive oneself

4.      Perfect sincerity is never to explain favourably what one does in order to have an excuse for what one wants to do

5.      Perfect sincerity is never to close one’s eyes when something is unpleasant, never to let anything pass, telling oneself, ‘That is not important, next time it will be better.’

6.      Try for one hour to be totally, absolutely sincere

7.      For one hour want nothing but the Divine, think of nothing but the Divine, do nothing but what will lead to the Divine, love nothing but the Divine

8.      One will see how difficult it is

9.      Of all sincerities, perfect mental sincerity is perhaps the most difficult

10.      Because Not to deceive oneself mentally is not an easy thing to achieve

11.      A simple rule in appearance of the Gita, to do the work that should be done without any desire for the fruit is difficult to carry out with an absolute sincerity

12.      You believe you are good, kind, well disposed and full of good feelings, you wish no harm to anybody, you wish only good

13.      But if you look at yourself sincerely, you notice that you have in your head a collection of thoughts which are sometimes frightful and of which you were not at all aware

14.      Then you truly want to be pure and wholly on the

side of the Truth

15.      That requires a vigilance, a sincerity, a self observation, a self-control which are not common

16.      You begin to realise that it is difficult to be truly sincere

III—How to Become Absolutely Sincere

1.      To be absolutely sincere, straightforward, open, is not an easy achievement for human nature

2.      To be absolutely sincere is possible only by spiritual endeavour

3.      To be absolutely sincere needs a severity of introspective self-vision, an unsparing scrutiny of self-observation

4.      To be absolutely sincere is possible by an illumining Grace that reveals the sadhak to himself and transforms what is deficient in him

5.      This can happen only if he himself consents and lends himself wholly to the divine working

6.      Yoga is the way to become sincere in all parts of the being

7.      Earnestly say to the Divine, ‘I want only Thee’, the Divine will arrange the circumstances in such a way that you are compelled to be sincere

8.      To be able to say, ‘I am Yours’ one must

a.      Never forget the goal

b.      Never allow any part of the being to contradict one’s aspiration

c.      Become conscious of one’s nights

9.      The source of sincerity is in the psychic being

10.      Generally sincerity is in the higher part of the mind

11.      For sincerity to be effective at least one part of the vital must respond, because the intensity of your will comes from there

12.      Sincerity demands that you confess immediately to the Divine Mother

13.      As you have confessed, this lapse may be considered as annulled, provided it is never repeated

14.      A greater frankness and sincerity in laying yourself open to the Mother will help you avoid aberrations

15.      Admit it to yourself when you have done something which you ought not to have done

16.      Look it in the face and tell yourself that it was not good or it is disgusting or it is wicked

17.      If one has done something bad and if one tells oneself, ‘Mother knows about it then one shuts a door upon it and then keeps it in one’s heart

18.      When you tell the Mother what wrong you have done, that opens a door wide and the Mother can enter straight into the psychic being, just through this effort of sincerity

19.      When the Mother enters she pours in all the light, all the force, the will, the consciousness necessary, so

that you cannot repeat what you have done

20.      To rectify our defects it does not only depend on the will of the Mother but on our sincerity

21.      In spiritual development the spontaneity of an absolute sincerity is indispensable

22.      On getting up, it is good to make an offering of this day to the Divine, an offering of all that one thinks and all that one will do

23.      At night review the number of times one has forgotten to make an offering of one’s self and to aspire that these lapses do not recur

24.      With this small beginning the remembrance of the Mother will increase with the sincerity of your consecration

25.      One can become entirely sincere if one aspires for sincerity at all times and calls in always the aid of the Divine Shakti with a true heart and straightforward will

26.      Sincerity comes by having first the constant central aspiration or will

27.      Next, the honesty to see and a vow the refusal in parts of the being

28.      Finally, the intention of seeing it through even there, however difficult it may be

29.      To realise a perfect sincerity complete unification of the whole being around the psychic centre has to be done

30.      The mistakes are due to a lack of sincerity in the being

31.      Not to make mistakes you have to become sincere and for that you have been given the power of will and of knowledge

32.      One becomes what one thinks so you should think of the sincerity you wish to become

33.      If a fault is shown to you it is as if a treasure were shown to you

34.      Perfect sincerity can only come when one rises above this sphere of falsehood that is life as we know it on earth, our mental life

35.      To get psychic sincerity patience is one of the most essential condition

36.      The outer being of man is always insincere

37.      Lay stress on the inner being and develop in it the psychic and spiritual consciousness till sincerity comes down in outer being

38.      Process to apply sincerity

a.      People who know that they are doing foolish things, who are conscious, but who are not able to refrain from them, because their mind does not have enough strength to check them

b.      If your mind receives the influence of psychic being then it is strong enough to organise the resistance

c.      Purification happens only when one decides that this time, one is going to try not to do it, and shall apply all one’s strength

d.      Even if it is a little success, a very partial success it is much

e.      This partial success is that one does not do what you yearn to do; but the yearning, the desire, the passion is still there but outside one resists

f.      This partial success is a great victory because, due to this, next time you will be able to do a little more

g.      One can begin calming the violent passions slowly at first, with difficulty

h.      They will come back, they will trouble you, but if you resist well then little by little that thins out, thins out

i.      Then you begin to learn the second attitude to be above those things

j.      There will still be many battles but if consciousness stands above that, little by little there will come a time when this will return no longer

k.      When these forces come and if one places a barrier and refuse to express them, they may try to beat against the barrier for a time, but in the end, they will tire themselves out, they will withdraw and leave you quiet

l.      Then there is a time when one feels that one is absolutely free

m.      It may take a long time, it may come soon, that depends on the sincerity of the aspiration

n.      But even for people who have just a little sincerity, if they subject themselves to this process, they succeed

39.      If the man remains what he is then it is not possible for him to be sincere

40.      Man has the possibility of transforming himself sufficiently to become perfectly sincere

41.      Sincerity is progressive

42.      As the being progresses and develops, sincerity too must go on perfecting itself endlessly

43.      Every halt in that development changes the sincerity of yesterday into the insincerity of tomorrow

44.      To be perfectly sincere it is indispensable not to have any preference, desire, attraction, dislike, sympathy or antipathy, attachment and repulsion

45.      So long as one carries them in himself, one cannot be perfectly sincere

46.      Unless man has decided to divinise himself, it seems almost impossible that he could be free from all these contraries within him

47.      One does not see, hear, taste, feel things as they are in reality as long as one has a preference

48.      You only see through your preference

49.      To be sure of what you see, what you feel, what you experience and think, you must have a complete detachment

50.      Until this detachment your perception cannot be

wholly true, and so it is not sincere

51.      One must not neglect having a sufficient humility

52.      One must never be satisfied with the sincerity one has, one must always want more

a.      The Mother has found most difficult to convert are very respectable people

b.      For they had such a good opinion of themselves that it was impossible to open them

53.      As long as the ego is there, one cannot say that a being is perfectly sincere, even though he is striving to become sincere

54.      That does not mean that one should not make an effort to be more sincere

55.      To be perfectly sincere one must pass beyond the ego, give oneself up totally to the divine Will, surrender without reserve and without calculation

56.      If you do not try sincerely your ego will never disappear

57.      The three things, something purely material, something mental, and something psychic are consciously combined then that produces beings of exceptional sincerity and consecration

a.      Purely material: For example, lighting incense, arranging offerings, or even looking after a temple, decorating an idol, indeed all such purely physical acts

b.      Mental consecration: Makes the act that is

performed a symbol. While lighting the incense one makes this gesture of the aspiration burning in the body or of self-giving in a dissolution, in the purification of the fire

c.      Psychic: Behind these two, there is an aspiration for union; this act may be only a means of drawing closer to the Divine and making yourself fit to unite with Him

d.      Then the entire being, in all its parts, participates in the action

e.      These three things combine produces beings of exceptional sincerity and consecration

58.      You are made of pieces which are not only different but often quite contradictory, these pieces necessarily create a division in your being

59.      For example, you have one part in yourself which aspires for the divine life, to know the Divine, to unite with Him

60.      Then you have another part which has attachments, desires, and which not only seeks what it calls ‘needs’ but is quite upset when it does not have them

61.      One part tries to take a step forward, the other one comes and demolishes everything

62.      So you have to begin again all the time, and every time it is demolished

63.      To be absolutely sincere is not to have any division, any contradiction in one’s being

64.      When you perceive in your being a part that pulls the other way, take it up carefully

65.      The work of sincerity which is indispensable is to educate the part that pulls you the other way and put it in harmony with the central part

66.      It is better to be what you are than to seem to appear to be good

67.      To be sincere one must be vigilant, on one’s guard, never to be taken by surprise

68.      One has to be sincere to see the conflict within oneself

69.      Usually one doesn’t pay any attention to conflicts within

70.      Observe with attention and catch bad hateful things and tell them ‘I don’t want you! I have nothing to do with this! You are going to get out of here, and you won’t return!’

71.      If you look sincerely, you will see that beneath your resolutions there is something waiting for the second of hesitation in order to rush forward

72.      If you are sincere get hold of the part which is hiding, waiting, not showing itself, which knows that there will come a second of indecision when it can rush out and make you do the thing you have decided not to do

73.      If you are not divided in your will, nothing in the world can prevent you from doing what you want

74.      Sincerely destroy the remembrance, destroy in oneself the memory of the state one is in when in that difficulty it would be the end of all difficulties for ever

75.      Even if you make sincere efforts, it is not in a day, not in a month, not in a year that you will reach the end of all these difficulties

76.      The world lives in falsehood, all relations between men have until now been based on falsehood and deceit

77.      Only a transparent sincerity in man and among nations can usher in a transformed world

78.      Auroville is the first attempt in this experiment of transforming world by sincerity in man and nations

79.      A new world will be born; if men are willing to seek for sincerity

80.      From animal to man, thousands of years were needed; today, with his mind, man can will and hasten a transformation towards a man who shall be God

81.      This transformation by the help of the mind—by self-analysis—is a first step

82.      Afterwards, to transform the vital impulses, that is much more difficult

83.      And then to transform the physical, every cell in our bodies must become conscious

84.      Auroville is the first step towards this goal

IV—The Obstacles That Must Be Overcome to Become Sincere

1.      Mental, vital or physical preferences and preconceived ideas

2.      If one sincerely has the will to change, it is a powerful help because it gives you the force to make the change

V—The Discipline of the Vital Requires Perfect Sincerity

1.      Vital sincerity, is most needed

2.      Not to regard vital insincerity as yourself, but as part of the old nature which has to be transformed

3.      Vital insincerity can be unconsciousness of which one is not aware

4.      Vital insincerity uses the reasoning mind as an accomplice

5.      Insincerity in the vital can be dangerous if the waking mind accepts it

6.      If insincerity in the vital remains in the subconscient, it keeps a seed of possibility

7.      Insincerity in the vital must be got out altogether

8.      Make your vital free from insincerity and give it as a pure offering to the Mother

9.      You have to learn to be conscious in all your actions, so that the vital movements will no longer be able to deceive you

10.      You must make a point of being perfectly sincere in

looking at these vital movements and seeing them as they are

11.      If one looks at oneself very sincerely one very quickly perceives that very few movements of consciousness are free from being mixed with desires

12.      Even in what you take for a higher movement, there is most often there is a desire mixed

13.      To transform the vital the steps are will, sincerity and aspiration and perseverance

14.      The discipline of the vital is the most difficult discipline

15.      This discipline is long and exacting labour requiring great patience and perfect sincerity

16.      Without sincerity man will deceive oneself from the very outset, and all endeavour for progress will be in vain

17.      If the vital is not to deceive you, your sincerity must also be almost miraculous

18.      The word ‘miraculous’ is used in order to give you a greater aspiration for sincerity

19.      To know if our acts, thoughts and aspirations are tainted by vital desire or not requires inner sincerity

20.      The simple way of knowing if aspiration is tainted by vital desire then one has to imagine that the thing one wants to do will not be done

21.      If this imagination creates the least uneasiness, then one can be sure of the presence of desire

22.      If the education of the vital is carried far enough,

there comes a time when vital is convinced of the greatness and beauty of the goal

23.      Then it gives up petty and illusory sensorial satisfactions in order to win the divine delight

24.      Sincerity in the vital is the sure road to realisation

25.      With sincerity, make an effort for progress

26.      Do with sincerity all you do and leave the results to the Divine’s care

27.      Not accept the movements of jealousy

28.      Best way of dealing with people whose vital calls always for disharmony, petty quarrels and confusion is not to mind their reactions

29.      If you want to change, you must first resolutely get rid of the defects of your vital being and for that you have to compel yourself always to be entirely sincere

30.      Establish a sincere will in the vital

31.      Do not allow personal desires and demands and selfishness and falsehood to mix in your sadhana

32.      Then alone the vital in you will become fit for the sadhana

33.      If you practise sincerely, you will get the help needed by you

34.      Vital sincerity is the one-pointed will in the vital to be transformed

35.      The purification of the vital takes a long time because there is a great habit of persistence and resistance in the habitual movements of the nature

36.      One therefore easily thinks that one has made no progress

37.      But all sincere and sustained effort of purification of vital has its result and after a time the progress made will become evident

38.      This resistance of the lower vital is usual in everybody and it is the main difficulty in Yoga

39.      Once the steady mental is there then it is a question of time that the vital will change

40.      It is possible to get rid of the vital demand, if the will to do it is sincere

41.      If he is sincere in his will, he will certainly get help and protection

42.      The vital nature is not at first willing to change

43.      You have to insist till it recognises the truth and is willing to be transformed and to accept the Mother’s help and grace

44.      If the mind is sincere and the psychic aspiration complete and true, the vital can always be made to change

45.      Call on the divine Shakti to open the vital nature and bring down calm, peace, light, Ananda into all the centres

46.      Aspire, await with faith and patience for the result

VI—The Attitude of Sincerity in Work

1.      Offer whatever work you do to the Divine and find

in the Divine the support you need

2.      Then you will feel that it is the Divine’s Force that has done the work in you and through you

3.      In your sincerity you will know that the merit of work is His and not yours, so there is no more reason to be proud

4.      The work given by the Mother is always meant as a field for self-consecration

5.      The work has to be done as an offering to the Mother so that through the self-offering one may come to feel her Force acting and her presence

6.      Continue the work as you are able to call and feel the Mother in Work

7.      The proof of sincerity is in doing the work and not in planning

8.      The tendency to plan and talk need not be too strong and some work must be done

9.      The Flower ‘Disinterested work’ means all work that is done, in all sincerity and in consecration to the Divine

10.      Prepare yourself inwardly by taking all work, wherever you are as a sacrifice, an offering to the Divine

11.      If you are sincere in your seeking, you can prepare yourself inwardly anywhere

12.      One needs to be concerned with one’s own work whether done sincerely and with the right spirit

VII—To Act Sincerely According to the Divine Will

1.      How to know that it is the divine Will which makes you act

2.      To know it you must be absolutely sincere

3.      This is not even a voice, not even a sensation, it is something extremely subtle, a slight indication

4.      When you do nothing contrary to the divine Will, you will not perhaps have any definite impression, everything will seem to you normal

5.      One can place one’s will at the disposal of the Divine to be able to do the best thing possible

6.      Do this with consciousness, sincerity and perseverance, and you will go ahead with gigantic strides

7.      One must do things with all the ardour of one’s soul, with all the strength of one’s will to be able to do the best thing possible

8.      Once you take this attitude [do things with ardour and with the strength of one’s will] with sincerity, you will know at each moment what you have to do

9.      According to your sincerity, the inspiration will be more precise more exact

10.      In all sincerity if one wants to do the right thing in the right way one can have an inner but perceptible indication

11.      If one launches upon a fatal action, one always feels uneasiness in the region of the solar plexus

12.      An uneasiness which is not violent, which doesn’t compel recognition dramatically, but is very perceptible to

someone who is attentive

13.      If in all sincerity you are very attentive to it, then it will be a very sure and precious guide

14.      To know whether the impulse comes from the Mother or not you must sincerely want to know it

15.      Then not to begin thinking about the subject and building all sorts of ideas and entering into a formidable mental activity

16.      Put the problem as though you were putting it to someone else, then keep silent, remain immobile

17.      If one is truly sincere and succeeds in being truly quiet, one will become aware of it

18.      The first effect of Yoga, takes away the mental control, and then hungers that lie dormant are suddenly set free, they rush up and invade the being

19.      In the period of transition where mental control has to be been replaced by the Divine control, your sincerity and surrender will be put to the test

20.      If all of a sudden, you feel a little uneasiness, at that moment, you must stop, no matter what you may be doing, and look

21.      If you are sincere, you will notice a small black spot and that’s the source of the uneasiness

22.      The little black spot comes from the ego which is full of preferences

23.      Then with patience, from the height of your consciousness, you must explain to this thing its mistake,

and in the end it will disappear

24.      If you try sincerely, you will always end with success

25.      If you persevere, you will see that all of a sudden you are relieved of a mass of meanness and ugliness and obscurity which was preventing you from flowering in the light

26.      It is those things which make you shrivel up, prevent you from widening yourself, opening out in a light

27.      If one says sincerely, ‘It must change’, one finds that one acquires a sort of inner clear-sightedness

28.      Then one offers the difficulty to the divine Consciousness, asking for its transformation

29.      To sincerely find out the reason for a little depression or a slight uneasiness, be absolutely straight and sincere

30.      Do not accept the plausible and beautiful explanation that your mind will construct

31.      Look beyond and ask, ‘What is it that is behind this movement? Why am I doing this?

32.      You will discover, hidden in a corner, the little ripple, a slight wrong turn or twist in your attitude that is causing the trouble or disturbance

33.      Laying bare of each falsehood and each acknowledgment of error is the demolition of one of the lords of Darkness

34.      This acknowledgment to oneself must be absolutely honest and not a subtle regret, to be forgotten the next moment

35.      Then with the strength make an unbreakable resolution not to repeat the mistake

36.      This acknowledgment may be to the Divine as a personal confession, then your resolution remains no longer your own

37.      Because if you are sincere, the Divine’s fiat goes forth in your favour

38.      First you begin by getting rid of the major desires, those that are most obvious and trouble you so much

39.      Then comes the subtler desires and it requires time and much sincerity to discover and overcome them

40.      It seems as if you had done away with these wretched desires in the material world, in the world of feelings, in the emotions and sentiments, in the mental world as regards ideas, and then you find them again in the spiritual world

41.      In the spiritual world they are far more dangerous, more subtle, more penetrating and much more invisible and covered by such a saintly appearance that one dare not call them desires

42.      Sincerity must be sufficient when you put the light of truth to pull out the falsehood clinging because it hurts

43.      To recognise what come from the Mother one can do it by discrimination, care, sincerity and the growth of a

certain kind of psychic tact

VII—Who Is Perfectly Sincere

1.      Only the Supreme Lord is perfectly sincere

2.      And when the ego is abolished, only the Supreme Lord exists

3.      The Divine when he takes on the burden of terrestrial nature, takes it sincerely and without any conjuring tricks or pretence

4.      If you are sure you have achieved absolute sincerity, you can be sure that you are immersed in falsehood

5.      It is no use thinking that one is very sincere or one is not sincere, what is useful is to be sincere

6.      Only those who are already very sincere know that they are not completely sincere

7.      There are many places where insincerity may be lodged

8.      As you are neither the Divine nor the Truth you have always a long way to go to reach the Truth and sincerity

9.      A sincere man is one who shuns all falsehood in what he says and all hypocrisy in what he does

10.      There are perhaps a hundred men on earth who are totally sincere

11.      Those who are sincere, to whichever nation they

belong, are all sincere in the same way

12.      The Mother uses the Mahakali method, with those in whom there is a fundamental sincerity even in the vital

13.      The inner liberation through an constant union, with the vibration of the supramental forces

14.      The preoccupation of all the elements of the being including all the cells of the body, is this union with the supramental forces

15.      The only thing that matters is the constant contact with the ineffable delight of the supramental consciousness

16.      That is sincerity

IX—The Avalanche of Troubles Is Always for Sincere People

1.      If you come to the spiritual life with a sincere aspiration, sometimes an avalanche of unpleasant things falls upon you

2.      It is sincere people who will realise that they are freed from attachments when they lose precious thing to which they are attached

3.      When someone has big troubles, it proves that he has reached a certain degree of sincerity

4.      If one is least bit of sincere it will give them a few good knocks to make them go faster

5.      If one aspires sincerely and if one has difficulties,

perhaps these difficulties will diminish

6.      Be sincere and you will be helped

7.      It is because both your mind and vital have become sincere that the attack is strong and seems to you abnormal

8.      Before as you were yielding from time to time, the part that wants to get rid of desire was not insistent and, when it pressed, it was not so acutely felt by the rest of the vital nature

9.      Your mental, psychic and higher vital beings that now stand completely apart from desire

10.      It is your physical vital that still keeps the desire and is pushed from time to time by opposite forces to make the desire active

11.      You must get rid of this desire of the lower vital altogether

12.      It often happens if the person is making a sincere effort to overcome the defects that it draws on itself incidents that put it to the test

13.      It can be the hostiles who are trying to break the resolution or putting it to the test

14.      It can be the gods who are doing it so as to press and hasten the progress or insisting on the reality and thoroughness of the change aspired after

15.      The malicious stupidities that men say about you, and such things come to you, because the divine Consciousness and the divine Grace take your resolution

seriously, to see whether your resolution is sincere

X—Sincerity in Fight Against the Adverse Forces

1.      The world as it is at present is still largely under the influence of the adverse forces

2.      If one wants to refuses to become the instrument of adverse forces, one must fight hard, be very sincere and be very pure

3.      If sincerely you observe you become aware that there is something in the being which responds to an influence, an impulse from the adverse forces

4.      The remedy not to respond to an influence from the adverse forces is goodwill, sincerity, insight, an untiring patience

5.      Sincerity is one of the things which make Asuric beings disappear

6.      So Asuric beings hate sincerity

7.      Asuric forces are useful to test the sincerity of people

8.      The day the sincerity will be pure and self existent the Asuric forces will disappear

9.      Adverse forces are very clever, they do not put on a look of catastrophe and misery and wickedness, for you will immediately find it out and will not let yourself be taken in

10.      Generally Adverse forces come in the garb of a

friend

11.      If you are very sincere you will recognise an adverse force

12.      If you are very sincere, you will notice some indications, like suggestions that satisfy your vanity or awaken in you doubts or make you a bit unconscious

13.      If you are very sincere, you see through adverse forces

14.      If you are alert enough not to allow yourself to be deceived by compliments or attempts that encourage you in these satisfactions of amour-propre

15.      If one cannot distinguish adverse forces it could be because one is absolutely insincere

16.      In order not to see the reality of things you hide your head, your observation, your knowledge and you say that it is not there

17.      One cannot distinguish adverse forces when one is quite unconscious

18.      One has not the habit of observing oneself of what is happening within

19.      In a moment of sincerity or a second of sincerity, when people had asked to be freed from the hostile emanation which made them act

20.      In that moment of sincerity the emanation went out of them, and without hurting the body the hostile emanation is caught and destroyed

21.      Then for some days the being is so happy, feels

free, feels luminous

22.      And then, suddenly, it tells itself ‘But this is not at all good, it was much better before’

23.      Immediately one reabsorbs and becomes once again what one was before, sometimes worse

24.      These adverse entities exist in thousands and are there swarming around people, only waiting for an opportunity to be able to rush into someone

25.      The hostile forces are there in the world to maintain the Ignorance

26.      The hostile forces are there in the sadhana because they had the right to test the sincerity of the sadhaks

27.      This is only so long as the higher Light has not descended into the physical

28.      Hostile forces are tolerated in the world only because they put man’s sincerity to the test

29.      The day mankind becomes integrally sincere, the hostile forces will pass away, for there will no longer be any reason for their existence

30.      The influence of the hostile Forces was on the sadhaks of the Asram as they open themselves to that influence

31.      It is only by a perfect sincerity and by a perfect opening to the Light that the influence of the hostile Forces can disappear

32.      In that sense the presence of hostile forces is a test and that the world has to be changed

33.      The adverse forces are there to tests the sincerity of our spiritual seeking

34.      There are three types of examinations, those set by the forces of Nature or by spiritual and divine forces and by hostile forces

35.      The examination set by hostile forces is the most deceptive in their appearance

36.      To avoid being caught unawares and unprepared by hostile forces requires a state of constant watchfulness, sincerity and humility

37.      Each person carries with himself in his atmosphere the ‘Censors’

38.      Censors are a permanent delegates of the adverse forces

39.      Censors role is to criticise mercilessly every act and thought, to bring to light the vibration of a lower kind

40.      When they are dealing with a scrupulous conscience, they can harass one without mercy, whispering at every minute, ‘You should not have done this, you should have done this thing instead, now you have spoilt everything, committed an irreparable mistake’

41.      Censors compel you to be absolutely sincere

42.      Censors are truly instruments of sincerity

43.      No hostile being or force can resist the power of purification handled with goodwill and sincerity

XI—The Divine Has Taken the Burden of Terrestrial Nature Sincerely

1.      The Mother once prayed to the Divine that whatever difficulties, dangers, sufferings were necessary for the path might be laid on her rather than on others

2.      This prayer has been so far heard and as a result all those who put an entire and sincere confidence in the Mother are able to follow the sunlit path

3.      Even those who cannot put an entire and sincere confidence in the Mother, yet when they do put the trust find their path suddenly easy

4.      If the path becomes difficult again, it is only when distrust, revolt, abhiman, or other darknesses come upon them

5.      The supramental will never come down, settle and manifest in a consciousness harbouring falsehood

6.      An absolute, integral sincerity must finally be established in the being for the supramental to settle and manifest

7.      Never doubt about the sincerity of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s feeling towards you, for it creates a veil and separates, where there should be no separation

8.      Sri Aurobindo and the Mother put up with our insincerities for they know that human nature is like that in its very grain

9.      They are patient otherwise there would be little hope of its changing

10.      But there is something else in the human being which is sincere and can be a force for the change

11.      The Mother knows very well the nature of all the sadhaks, their faults as well as their merits

12.      It is why she has patience and love and charity for all, not for some alone, who are sincere in their work or their sadhana

13.      If one part in a person sincerely desires the Divine, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother gives them their chance

14.      If more is demanded at the beginning, few would be able even to commence their journey towards the Divine

15.      When someone has a sincere and strong call for the sadhana Sri Aurobindo does not refuse to accept him

16.      Those who sincerely give themselves to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, cannot be rejected

17.      Sri Aurobindo and the Mother always give time for the soul to grow upon the other parts

18.      They do not mind if it takes time, provided there is a central sincerity and will

19.      MAHASARASWATI is not easily turned away or discouraged, on condition that we are single in our will and sincere

20.      Once integral self-giving has been made in faith and in sincerity then all have access to this gate of Divine

21.      The virtuous man is not preferred, nor the sinner shut out from the Presence of the Divine

22.      The Brahmin pure of life and the outcaste born from a womb of sin can travel and find an equal and open access to the supreme liberation and the highest dwelling in the Eternal

XII—The Measure of the Soul’s Sincerity

1.      The measure of the soul’s sincerity is a yearning after the Divine

2.      The measure of the soul’s sincerity is soul’s aspiration towards the higher life

3.      He feels closer to the Divine who is conscious of his faults and aspires sincerely to come out of it all

4.      He feels perhaps closer to him than to one who is satisfied with his external superiority

5.      For the sincerity to be perfect and the choice unshakable, one must never sleep, be vigilant

6.      Do not sleep with satisfaction under the pretext that you have once made your choice and now everything is all right

XIII—Messages of the Mother on Sincerity to Different Institutions

XIV—With the Descent of Supramental a Little Sincerity Becomes Miraculous in Its Result

1.      By the descent of the Supramental things that were neutral become absolute

2.      A little error becomes categorical in its consequences

3.      A little sincerity, a little true aspiration becomes miraculous in its result

4.      Sincerity is one of the factors of a right attitude on the path till the Supramental Truth is realised

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