Patience

in Sadhana

A Compilation from the Works of

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

Patience

in Sadhana

© All writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

are copyright of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

and have been reproduced here with their kind permission.

©2019 AuroPublications, Sri Aurobindo Society, Puducherry

www.aurosociety.org

Year of Publication 2019

Compilation done by Jamshed M. Mavalwalla

Proof reading done by Archana Udaykumar, Puja Narula and Shivakumar

Cover designed by Kavita Dutta

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

The photograph of the flower on the cover has been given the spiritual significance ‘PATIENCE’ by the Mother.

The botanical name of the flower is mimusops elengi.

(The Spiritual Significance of Flowers, Part I)

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

In the series of comprehensive compilations on the virtues and qualities as prescribed by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother necessary for doing Yoga we present the ninth virtue in this book ‘PATIENCE 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 virtue. Also, to emphasize in certain portions of the quotations, the compiler has bold faced some words.

Jamshed M. Mavalwalla

Contents

Part – I

I—Patience in Yoga Is ...

II—What Is Not Patience

III—Only the Spirit Is Capable of Illimitable Patience

IV—In the Integral Yoga, There Must Be an Unshakable Patience

V—Why We Should Be Patient in Yoga

VI—The Attitude of Patience Required in Yoga

VII—Benefits of Patience in Yoga

VIII—Patience Needed to Understand Sri Aurobindo’s Works

IX—The Patience of Our Most Ancient Sages

X—The Divine Patience

XI—The Patience of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo

XII—The Nature Evolves with an Amazing Patience

XIII—Good Teachers Must Have Unfailing Patience

XIV—Children and Patience

XV—Even Cats Show Marvellous Patience to Educate Their Kittens

XVI—Examples of Areas Where Patience Is Needed

XVII—Other Quotations on Patience

Part II—Impatience

XVIII—Impatience Comes from

XIX—In Yoga Impatience Is …

XX—Difference Between Aspiring Intensity and Impatience

XXI—When There Is Impatience in Yoga

XXII—The Impatience and the Sadhana

XXIII—Curb the Mind’s Impatience

XXIV—Anger Is a Violent Impatience

XXV—Get Rid of Impatience

XXVI—How the Impatience in Yoga Will Disappear

XXVII—The Time of Impatience Is Gone

XXVIII—Other Quotations on Impatience

XXIX—Short Summary

Part – I

I—Patience in Yoga Is ...

“Patience: the capacity to wait steadily for the Realisation to come.” (CWM 14: 165)

“Patience: indispensable for all realisation.” (CWM 14: 165)

“The Deva nature is distinguished by an acme of the sattwic habits and qualities; self-control, sacrifice, the religious habit, cleanness and purity, candour and straightforwardness, truth, calm and self-denial, compassion to all beings, modesty, gentleness, forgivingness, patience, steadfastness, a deep sweet and serious freedom from all restlessness, levity and inconstancy are its native attributes.” (CWSA 19: 471)

“The most varied qualities met in the Indian conception of the best, śreṣṭha the good and nobleman, ārya. In the heart benevolence, beneficence, love, compassion, altruism, long-suffering, liberality, kindliness, patience; in the character courage, heroism, energy, loyalty, continence ...” (CWSA 20: 164)

“The psychological fact is that there are these four active powers and tendencies of the Spirit [the Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra] and its executive Shakti within us and the predominance of one or the other in the more well formed part of our personality gives us our main tendencies, dominant qualities and capacities, effective turn in action and life. ... The soul-powers which make their appearance by a considerable development of this temperament, personality, soul-type, are a mind of light more and more open to all ideas and knowledge and incomings of Truth; a hunger and passion for knowledge, for its growth in ourselves, ... a power of this light in the mind and will which makes all the life subject to reason and its right and truth or to the spirit and spiritual right and truth and subdues the lower members to their greater law; a poise in the temperament turned from the first to patience, steady musing and calm, to reflection, to meditation, which dominates and quiets the turmoil of the will and passions and makes for high thinking and pure living, founds the self-governed sattwic mind, grows into a more and more mild, lofty, impersonalised and universalised personality. This is the ideal character and soul-power of the Brahmana, the priest of knowledge.” (CWSA 24: 743–744)

II—What Is Not Patience

“Never mistake rashness for courage, nor indifference for patience.” (CWM 14: 170)

“It should not be thought, however, that we have a high regard for a training which weakens the character by depriving it of all its drive and vigour. When we put a bridle on a wild horse, we do not want the bit to tear his mouth and break his teeth. And if we want him to do his work well, we must tighten the reins to guide him, but we must not pull on them so hard that he can no longer move forward.

Unfortunately there are only too many weak characters who can, like sheep, be driven by a mere bark.

There are slavish and insensitive natures, lacking in spirit and more forbearing than they should be.

Abu Otman al-Hiri was known for his excessive patience. One day he was invited to a feast. When he arrived, the host told him: ‘You must excuse me, I cannot receive you. So please go back home, and may Allah have mercy on you.’

Abu Otman went back home. No sooner was he there than his friend appeared and invited him once more.

Abu Otman followed his friend as far as his doorstep, but there the friend stopped and again asked to be excused. Abu Otman went away without a murmur.

A third time and a fourth the same scene was repeated, but in the end his friend received him and said to him before the whole company:

‘Abu Otman, I behaved in this way in order to test your good temper. I admire your patience and forbearance.’

‘Do not praise me,’ replied Abu Otman, ‘for dogs practise the same virtue: they come when they are called and go when they are sent away.’

Abu Otman was a man and not a dog. And it could do no one any good that he should thus, of his own accord, without dignity or good cause, submit to the mockery of his friends.

Did then this man who was so meek have nothing in him to control? Oh, yes he did! It was the most difficult thing of all to control—the weakness of his character. And it was because he did not know how to control himself that everyone controlled him as they pleased.” (CWM 2: 176–177)

III—Only the Spirit Is Capable of Illimitable Patience

“To be equal, not to be overborne by any stress of desire, is the first condition of real mastery, self-empire is its basis. But a mere mental equality, however great it may be, is hampered by the tendency of quiescence. It has to preserve itself from desire by self-limitation in the will and action. It is only the spirit which is capable of sublime undisturbed rapidities of will as well as an illimitable patience, equally just in a slow and deliberate or a swift and violent, equally secure in a safely lined and limited or a vast and enormous action. It can accept the smallest work in the narrowest circle of cosmos, but it can work too upon the whirl of chaos with an understanding and creative force; and these things it can do because by its detached and yet intimate acceptance it carries into both an infinite calm, knowledge, will and power.” (CWSA 24: 721)

“As the state of being changes, the will and temperament must necessarily be modified. Even from an early stage the Yogin begins to subordinate his personal will or it becomes naturally subordinate to the sense of the supreme Will which is attracting him upward. Ignorantly, imperfectly, blunderingly it moves at first, with many recoils and relapses into personal living and personal action, but in time it becomes more in tune with its Source and eventually the personal will merges upward and all ways into the universal and infinite and obeys implicitly the transcendent. Nor does this change and ascension and expanding mean any annihilation of the will-power working in the individual, as the intellectual man might imagine; but rather it increases it to an immense forcefulness while giving it an infinite calm and an eternal patience. The temperament also is delivered from all leash of straining and desire, from all urge of passion and pain of wilful self-delusion.” (CWSA 13: 124)

“To feel hurt by what others do or think or say is always a sign of weakness and proof that the whole being is not exclusively turned towards the Divine, not under the divine influence alone. And then, instead of bringing with oneself the divine atmosphere made of love, tolerance, understanding, patience, it is one’s ego that throws itself out, in response to another’s ego, with stiffness and hurt feelings, and the disharmony is aggravated. The ego never understands that the Divine has different workings in different people and that to judge things from one’s own egoistic point of view is a great mistake bound to increase the confusion. What we do with passion and intolerance cannot be divine, because the Divine works only in peace and harmony.” (CWM 14: 279)

“It is true that anger and strife are in the nature of the human vital and do not go easily; but what is important is to have the will to change and the clear perception that these things must go. If that will and perception are there, then in the end they will go. The most important help to it is, here also, for the psychic being to grow within—for that brings a certain kindliness, patience, charity towards all and one no longer regards everything from the point of view of one’s own ego and its pain or pleasure, likings and dislikings.” (CWSA 31: 275)

“I have read your letter and I understand now what it is that you find trying—but they do not seem to us such serious things as to be rightly felt as a cause of disturbance. They are the kind of inconveniences that one always has when people live and work together. It arises from a misunderstanding between two minds or two wills, each pulling his own way and feeling hurt or vexed if the other does not follow. This can only be cured by a change of consciousness—for when one goes into a deeper consciousness, first, one sees the cause of these things and is not troubled; one acquires an understanding, patience and tolerance that makes one free from vexation and other reactions.” (CWSA 31: 323)

IV—In the Integral Yoga, There Must Be an Unshakable Patience

“In all Yoga the first requisites are faith and patience. The ardours of the heart and the violences of the eager will that seek to take the kingdom of heaven by storm can have miserable reactions if they disdain to support their vehemence on these humbler and quieter auxiliaries. And in the long and difficult integral Yoga there must be an integral faith and an unshakable patience.” (CWSA 23: 244)

“It is best for each person to find his own path, but for this the aspiration must be ardent, the will unshakable, the patience unfailing.” (CWM 16: 322)

“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?

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)

“Askesis, tapasya, patience and faithfulness and rectitude of knowledge and will are the things required until a greater Power than our mental selves directly intervenes to effect a more easy and rapid transformation.” (CWSA 24: 739)

“In psychological fact this method translates itself into the progressive surrender of the ego with its whole field and all its apparatus to the Beyond-ego with its vast and incalculable but always inevitable workings. Certainly, this is no short cut or easy sadhana. It requires a colossal faith, an absolute courage and above all an unflinching patience. For it implies three stages of which only the last can be wholly blissful or rapid,—the attempt of the ego to enter into contact with the Divine, the wide, full and therefore laborious preparation of the whole lower Nature by the  divine working to receive and become the higher Nature, and the eventual transformation. In fact, however, the divine Strength, often unobserved and behind the veil, substitutes itself for our weakness and supports us through all our failings of faith, courage and patience.” (CWSA 23: 46)

“The work here is not intended for showing one’s capacity or having a position or as a means of physical nearness to the Mother, but as a field and an opportunity for the Karmayoga part of the integral Yoga—for learning to work in the true Yogic way—dedication through service, practical selflessness, obedience, scrupulousness, discipline, setting the Divine and the Divine’s work first and oneself last, harmony, patience, forbearance etc. When the workers learn these things and cease to be egocentric, as most of you now are, then will come the time for work in which capacity can really be shown—although even then the showing of capacity will be an incident and can never be the main consideration or the object of divine work.” (CWSA 35: 750)

“God has all time before him and does not need to be always in a hurry. He is sure of his aim and success and cares not if he break his work a hundred times to bring it nearer perfection. Patience is our first great necessary lesson, but not the dull slowness to move of the timid, the sceptical, the weary, the slothful, the unambitious or the weakling; a patience full of a calm and gathering strength which watches and prepares itself for the hour of swift great strokes, few but enough to change destiny.” (CWSA 13: 209–210)

“Cases differ, each has his own way of sadhana. But for you what I would recommend is constant openness, a quiet steady aspiration, no over-eagerness, a cheerful trust and patience.” (CWSA 29: 275)

“Aspiration and will of consecration calling down a greater Force to do the work is a method which brings great results, even if in some it takes a long time about it. That is a great secret of sadhana, to know how to get things done by the Power behind or above instead of doing all by the mind’s effort. I don’t mean to say that the mind’s effort is unnecessary or has no result—only if it tries to do everything by itself, that becomes a laborious effort for all except the spiritual athletes. Nor do I mean that the other method is the longed-for short cut; the result may, as I have said, take a long time. Patience and firm resolution are necessary in every method of sadhana.

Strength is all right for the strong—but aspiration and the Grace answering to it are not altogether myths; they are great realities of the spiritual life.” (CWSA 29: 215)

“ ‘Often he (the sadhak) finds that even after he has won

persistently his own personal battle, he has still to win it over and over again...’

Yes. So?

Then does this mean that others profit by his sadhana?

You understand, it’s like that for everyone.

If there was only one, it could be like this: that he alone could do it for all; but if everybody does it... you understand...

You are fifty persons doing the Integral Yoga. If it is only one of the fifty who is doing it, then he does it for all the fifty. But if each one of the fifty is doing it, each doing it for all the fifty, he does it actually for one person alone, because all do it for all.

But the work is much longer?

One must widen oneself.

The work is more complicated, it is more complete, it asks for a greater power, a greater wideness, a greater patience, a greater tolerance, a greater endurance; all these things are necessary. But in fact, if each one does perfectly what he has to do, it is no longer only one single person who does the whole thing: not one single person who does it for all, but all now form only one person who does it for the whole group.

This ought to form a kind of sufficient unity among all those who are doing it, so that they no longer feel the distinction. This is indeed the ideal way of doing it: that they now form only one single body, one single personality, working at once each for himself and for the others without any distinction.

Truly speaking, it was the first question which came up when I met Sri Aurobindo. I think I have already told you this; I don’t remember now, but I spoke about it recently. Should one do one’s yoga and reach the goal and then later take up the work with others or should one immediately let all those who have the same aspiration come to him and go forward all together towards the goal?

Because of my earlier work and all that I had tried, I came to Sri Aurobindo with the question very precisely formulated. For the two possibilities were there: either to do an intensive individual sadhana by withdrawing from the world, that is, by no longer having any contact with others, or else to let the group be formed naturally and spontaneously, not preventing it from being formed, allowing it to form, and starting all together on the path.

Well, the decision was not at all a mental choice; it came spontaneously. The circumstances were such that there was no choice; that is, quite naturally, spontaneously, the group was formed in such a way that it became an imperious necessity. And so once we have started like that, it is finished, we have to go to the end like that.” (CWM 7: 408–409)

“It is true that a great patience and steadfastness is needed. Be then firm and patient and fixed on the aims of the sadhana, but not over-eager to have them at once. A work has to be done in you and is being done; help it to be done by keeping an attitude of firm faith and confidence. Doubts rise in all, they are natural to the human physical mind—reject them.”  (CWSA 29: 111)

“Each man has his defects—you and all others. So you should not allow that to destroy the harmony that should reign among workers. Remember that patience and equanimity and good feeling for all are the first needs of the sadhak.” (CWSA 35: 752)

“No sadhak even if he had the capacity of the ancient Rishis and Tapaswis or the strength of a Vivekananda can  hope to keep during the early years of his sadhana a continuous good condition or union with the Divine or an unbroken call or height of aspiration. It takes a long time to spiritualise the whole nature and until that is done, variations must come. A constant trust and patience must be cultivated—must be acquired—not least when things go against—for when they are favourable, trust and patience are easy.” (CWSA 29: 32)

“All have had to pass through the ordeal and test through which you are passing. We would have avoided it for you if it had been possible, but since it has come we look to you to persist and conquer. Patience, quiet endurance, calm resolution to go through to the end and triumph, these are the qualities now required of you—the less spectacular but more substantial of the warrior virtues.” (CWSA 31: 759–760)

“That is sufficient to blow the rest of your Jeremiad into smithereens; it proves that the force was and is there and at work and it is only your sweating Herculean labour that prevents you feeling it. Also it is the trickle that gives assurance of the possibility of the downpour. One has only to go on and by one’s patience deserve the downpour or else, without deserving, stick on till one gets it. In Yoga itself the experience that is a promise and foretaste but gets shut off till the nature is ready for the fulfilment is a phenomenon familiar to every Yogin when he looks back on his past experience.” (CWSA 29: 185) (CWSA 27: 460–461)

“If imperfections were a bar, then no man could succeed in Yoga; for all are imperfect, and I am not sure, from what I have seen, that it is not those who have the greatest power for Yoga who have too, very often, or have had the greatest imperfections. You know, I suppose, the comment of Socrates on his own character; that could be said by many great Yogins of their own initial human nature. Also, self-expression in some form of art does not preclude serious imperfections and, of itself, does not cure them. Here again my experience is that men of this kind have great qualities, but also great faults and defects as a weight in the other balance. In Yoga the one thing that counts in the end is sincerity and with it the patience to persist in the path—many even without this patience go through, for—again I speak from personal experience,—in spite of revolt, impatience, depression, despondency, fatigue, temporary loss of faith, a force greater than one’s outer self, the force of the Spirit, the drive of the soul’s need, pushes them through the cloud and the mist to the goal before them. Imperfections can be stumbling blocks and give one a bad fall for the moment, but not a permanent bar. Obscurations due to some resistance in the nature can be more serious causes of delay, but they too do not last for ever.” (CWSA 31: 661)

V—Why We Should Be Patient in Yoga

“There are either of two possibilities then,—to get out of it into Nirvana by the Buddhist or illusionist way or to get inside oneself and find the Divine there since he is not discoverable on the surface. For those who have made the attempt, and there were not a few but hundreds and thousands, have testified through the ages that he is there and that is why there exists the Yoga. It takes long? The Divine is concealed behind a thick veil of his Maya and does not answer at once or at any early stage to our call? Or he gives only a glimpse uncertain and passing and then withdraws and waits for us to be ready? ... It is positive that we have to get inside, behind the veil, to find him,—it is only then that we can see him outside and the intellect be not so much convinced as forced to admit his presence by experience—just as when a man sees what he has denied and can no longer deny it. But for that the means must be accepted and the persistence in the will and patience in the labour.” (CWSA 28: 356)

“It is certain that an ardent aspiration for the Divine helps to progress, but patience is also needed. For it is a very big change that has to be made and, although there can be moments of great rapidity, it is never all the time like that. Old things try to stick as much as possible; the new that come have to develop and the consciousness takes time to assimilate them and make them normal to the nature.

Keep this firm faith in your mind that the thing needed is being done and will be done fully. There can be no doubt about that.” (CWSA 29: 110)

“I believe that for the effect to be lasting—not a miraculous effect that comes, dazzles and goes away—it must really be the effect of a transformation. One must be very, very patient—we have to deal with a consciousness very slow, very heavy, very obstinate, which is not able to advance rapidly, which clings to what it has, to what has appeared to it as truth; even if it is quite a tiny truth, it clings to that and does not want to move. Then to cure that, one must have very much patience—much patience.

The whole thing is to hold on, to endure, to endure.

Sri Aurobindo has said this many times in many forms: Endure and you’ll conquer... bear—bear and you’ll vanquish.

Triumph comes to the most enduring.” (CWM 11: 3)

“It should be noted that the result of the Yogic processes is not, except in rare cases, immediate and one must apply them with patience till they give a result which is sometimes long in coming if there is much resistance in the outer nature.” (CWSA 29: 304)

“Also without establishing in oneself calm, sincerity, peace, patience and perseverance this Yoga cannot be done, for many difficulties have to be faced and it takes years and years to overcome them definitely and altogether.” (CWSA 35: 597)

“When there is full faith and consecration, there comes also a receptivity to the Force which makes one do the right thing and take the right means and then circumstances adapt themselves and the result is visible.

To arrive at this condition the important thing is a persistent aspiration, call and self-offering, and a will to reject all in oneself or around that stands in the way. Difficulties there will always be at the beginning and for as long a time as is necessary for the change; but they are bound to disappear if they are met by a settled faith, will and patience.” (CWSA 29: 234)

“Do not grieve. Always the same battle must be won several times, especially when it is waged against the hostile forces. That is why one must be armed with patience and keep faith in the final victory.” (CWM 16: 184)

“It must be remembered however that this Yoga is not easy and cannot be done without the rising of many obstacles and much lapse of time—so if you take it up it must be with a firm resolve to carry it through to the end with a whole-hearted sincerity, faith, patience and courage.” (CWSA 35: 547) (CWSA 30: 455)

“This path has neither the same aim nor the same method as the ordinary Yoga, it aims at a realisation of which their results are only component parts; it may be said to begin its capital experiences where these end and its object is one that they would consider impossible. Much of it is virgin ground in which the paths have yet to be cut and built. The obstacles and difficulties in the way of success are formidable and demand either a strength and patience or a faith and unquestioning reliance on the Guru who is the pathfinder and leader.” (CWSA 35: 529)

“You say after several years you have not changed your nature. I only wish the external nature were so easy to transform that it could be done in a few years. You forget also that the real problem—to get rid of the pervading ego in this nature—is a task you have seriously tackled only a short time ago. And it is not in a few months that that can be done. Even the best sadhaks find after many experiences and large changes on the higher planes that here much remains to be done. How do you expect to get rid of it at once unlike everybody else? A Yoga like this needs patience, because it means a change both of the radical motives and of each part and detail of the nature. It will not do to say, ‘Yesterday I determined this time to give myself entirely to the Mother, and look it is not done, on the contrary all the old opposite things turn up once more; so there is nothing to do but to proclaim myself unfit and give up the Yoga.’ Of course when you come to the point where you make a resolution of that kind, immediately all that stands in the way does rise up—it invariably happens. The thing to be done is to stand back, observe and reject, not to allow these things to get hold of you, to keep your central will separate from them and call in the Mother’s Force to meet them.” (CWSA 32: 200–201)

“Mother, here it is said: ‘He who chooses the Infinite has

been chosen by the Infinite.’

It is a magnificent sentence!

And it is absolutely true. There is in Thoughts and Glimpses also a sentence like this where I think he uses the word ‘God’ instead of the Infinite. But the idea is the same—that it is God who has chosen you, the Divine who has chosen you. And that is why you run after Him!

And this is what gives—that’s what he says, doesn’t he?—this is what gives that kind of confidence, of certitude, precisely, that one is predestined; and if one is predestined, even if there are mountains of difficulties, what can that matter since one is sure to succeed! This gives you an indomitable courage to face all difficulties and a patience that stands all trials: you are sure to succeed.” (CWM 7: 338–339)

“All the call for faith, sincerity, surrender is only an invitation to make that cooperation more easily possible. If the physical mind ceases to judge all things including those that it does not know or are beyond it, like the deeper things of the spirit, then it becomes easier for it to receive the Light and know by illumination and experience the things that it does not yet know.  ‘If the mental and vital will place themselves in the Divine Hand without reservation, then it is easier for the Power to work and produce ‘tangible’ effects. If there is resistance, then it is natural that it should take more time and the work should be done from within or as it might appear underground so as to prepare the nature and undermine the resistance. It seems to me that the demand for patience is not so terribly unreasonable.” (CWSA 31: 32–33)

“Certainly, it is not necessary for you to become ‘good’ in order that the Mother may give you her love. Her love is always there and the imperfections of human nature do not count against that love. The only thing is that you must become aware of it always there. For that it is necessary for the psychic to come in front—for the psychic knows, while the mind, vital and physical look only at surface appearances and misinterpret them. It is that for which the Mother’s force is working, and whenever the psychic comes near the surface, you have felt love and nearness coming up. But it needs time to prepare the other parts so that they also may know and feel. Therefore the patience is necessary and the confidence that through all the delays and difficulties of the sadhana the Mother is leading you and will surely lead you home to her.” (CWSA 32: 481)

“It is of course said that the success will come sooner or later,—it is for that reason that patience is indispensable. But these are not Himalayan conditions—it is not putting an impossible price on what is asked for.” (CWSA 35: 131)

“Everything will come in its time; keep a confident patience and all will be all right.” (CWM 14: 166)

VI—The Attitude of Patience Required in Yoga

“You must arm yourself with an endless patience and endurance. You do a thing once, ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times if necessary, but you do it till it gets done. And not done only here and there, but everywhere and everywhere at the same time. This is the great problem one sets oneself. That is why, to those who come to tell me very light-heartedly, ‘I want to do yoga’, I reply, ‘Think it over, one may do the yoga for a number of years without noticing the least result. But if you want to do it, you must persist and persist with such a will that you should be ready to do it for ten lifetimes, a hundred lifetimes if necessary, in order to succeed.’ I do not say it will be like that, but the attitude must be like that.” (CWM 4: 251)

“Work as if the ideal had to be fulfilled swiftly and in thy lifetime; persevere as if thou knewest it not to be unless purchased by a thousand years yet of labour. That which thou darest not expect till the fifth millennium, may bloom out with tomorrow’s dawning and that which thou hopest and lustest after now, may have been fixed for thee in thy hundredth advent. [On Thoughts and Aphorisms]

This is exactly the attitude we should all have towards transformation: as much energy and ardour as if we were certain of achieving it in our present life, as much patience and endurance as if we needed centuries to realise it.” (CWM 10: 301)

“Each man of us has a million lives yet to fulfil upon earth. Why then this haste and clamour and impatience?

Stride swiftly, for the goal is far; rest not unduly, for thy Master is waiting for thee at the end of thy journey. [On Thoughts and Aphorisms]

Here again, as always, Sri Aurobindo sees every aspect of the question and while preaching calm and patience to the restless, he rouses and preaches energy to the indolent. In the union of opposites lies true wisdom and total effectiveness.” (CWM 10: 301–302)

“The ideal attitude of the sadhaka towards Time is to have an endless patience as if he had all eternity for his fulfilment and yet to develop the energy that shall realise now and with an ever-increasing mastery and pressure of rapidity till it reaches the miraculous instantaneousness of the supreme divine Transformation.” (CWSA 23: 68)

“The six years of which you speak have been spent by you mainly in struggling with sex and doubt and vital difficulties—many take more than that time about it. What I have been wanting you to do now is to get the right positive attitude within at the centre free from these things. Its basis must be what I have said, ‘I want the Divine and the Divine only; since I want and need, I shall surely arrive, however long it takes, and till I do, I shall persist and endure with patience and courage.’ I do not mean by that that you should have no activity but prayer and concentration; few can do that; but whatever is done should be done in that spirit.” (CWSA 31: 730)

“That the constant fire of aspiration has to be lit is true; but this fire is the psychic fire and it is lit or burns up and increases as the psychic grows within and for the psychic to grow quietude is needful. That is why we have been working for the psychic to grow in you and for the quietude also to grow and that is why we want you to wait on the Mother’s working in full patience and confidence. To be always remembering the Mother and always with the equal unwavering fire with in means itself a considerable progress in sadhana and it must be prepared by various means such as the experiences you have been having. Keep steadfast in confidence therefore and all that has to be done will be done.” (CWSA 30: 368–369)

“I seek a scepticism that shall question everything but shall have the patience to deny nothing that may possibly be true.” (CWSA 12: 62)

“The certitude of the Victory gives an infinite patience with the maximum of energy.” (CWM 15: 82)

VII—Benefits of Patience in Yoga

“Skilful hands, a clear vision, a concentrated attention, an untiring patience, and what one does is well done.” (CWM 14: 308)

“To one who has the aspiration for the Divine, the difficulty which is always before him is the door by which he will attain God in his own individual manner: it is his particular path towards the Divine Realisation.

There is also the fact that if somebody has a hundred difficulties it means he will have a tremendous realisation—provided, of course, there are in him patience and endurance and he keeps the aspiring flame of Agni burning against those defects.

And remember: the Grace of the Divine is generally proportioned to your difficulties.” (CWM 3: 143)

“With patience any difficulty can be overcome.” (CWM 14: 166)

“In this Yoga all depends on whether one can open to the

Influence or not. If there is a sincerity in the aspiration and a patient will to arrive at the higher consciousness in spite of all obstacles, then the opening in one form or another is sure to arrive.” (CWSA 29: 107)

“Vital patience: indispensable for all progress.” (CWM 14: 354)

“Human beings could be classified under four principal categories according to the attitude they take in life:

( 1 ) Those who live for themselves. They consider everything in relation to themselves and act accordingly. The vast majority of men are like this.

(2) Those who give their love to another human being and live for him. As for the result, everything naturally depends on the person one chooses to love.

(3) Those who consecrate their life to the service of humanity through some activity done not for personal satisfaction but truly to be useful to others without calculation and without expecting any personal gain from their work.

(4) Those who give themselves entirely to the Divine and live only for Him and through Him. This implies making the effort required to find the Divine, to be conscious of His Will and to work exclusively to serve Him.

In the first three categories, one is naturally subject to the ordinary law of suffering, disappointment and sorrow. It is only in the last category—if one has chosen it in all sincerity and pursued it with an unfailing patience—that one finds the certitude of total fulfilment and a constant luminous peace.” (CWM 16: 428–429)

“Do not be over-eager for experience,—for experiences you can always get, having once broken the barrier between the physical mind and the subtle planes. What you have to aspire for most is the improved quality of the recipient consciousness in you—discrimination in the mind, ... enduring patience, absence of pride and the sense of greatness—and more especially, the development of the psychic being in you—surrender, self-giving, psychic humility, devotion. It is a consciousness made up of these things, cast in this mould that can bear without breaking, stumbling or deviation into error the rush of lights, powers and experiences from the supraphysical planes.” (CWSA 30: 33)

“Accomplishment is without any doubt the fruit of patience.” (CWM 14: 165)

“With patience, strength, courage and a calm and indomitable energy we shall prepare ourselves to receive the Supramental Force.” (CWM 15: 92)

VIII—Patience Needed to Understand Sri Aurobindo’s Works

“But if we go back to the beginning, then it becomes extremely practical, concrete and very encouraging.... For we say this: in order to have the idea of the impossible, that something is ‘impossible’, you must attempt it. For example, if at this moment you feel that what I am telling you is impossible to understand (laughing), this means that you are trying to understand it; and if you try to understand it, this means it is within your consciousness, otherwise you could not try to understand it—just as I am in your consciousness, just as my words are in your consciousness, just as what Sri Aurobindo has written is also in your consciousness, otherwise you would have no contact with it. But for the moment it is impossible to understand, for want of a few small cells in the brain, nothing else, it is very simple. And as these cells develop through attention, concentration and effort, when you have listened attentively and made an effort to understand, well, after a few hours or a few days or a few months, new convolutions will be formed in your brain, and all this will become quite natural. You will wonder how there could have been a time when you did not understand: ‘It is so simple!’ But so long as these convolutions are not there, you may make an effort, you may even give yourself a headache, but you will not understand.

It is very encouraging because, fundamentally, the only thing necessary is to want it and to have the necessary patience. What is incomprehensible for you today will be quite clear in a short time. And note that it is not necessary that you should give yourself a headache every day and at every minute by trying to understand! One very simple thing is enough: to listen as well as you can, to have a sort of will or aspiration or, you might even say, desire to understand, and then that’s all. You make a little opening in your consciousness to let the thing enter; and your aspiration makes this opening, like a tiny notch inside, a little hole somewhere in what is shut up, and then you let the thing enter. It will work. And it will build up in your brain the elements necessary to express itself. You no longer need to think about it. You try to understand something else, you work, study, reflect, think about all sorts of things; and then after a few months—or perhaps a year, perhaps less, perhaps more—you open the book once again and read the same sentence, and it seems as clear as crystal to you! Simply because what was necessary for understanding has been built up in your brain.” (CWM 8: 385–386)

“I always tell people: if you were to take a little trouble to read what Sri Aurobindo has written, many of your questions would become useless, for Sri Aurobindo has already answered them. However, people probably have neither the time nor the patience nor the will, nor all that is needed, and they don’t read. The books are published, they are even, I believe, generously distributed, but few read them.” (CWM 8: 204)

“In reality, you should take this reading [The Life Divine] as an opportunity to develop the philosophical mind in yourself and the capacity to arrange ideas in a logical order and establish an argument on a sound basis. You must take this like dumb-bell exercises for developing muscles: these are dumb-bell exercises for the mind to develop one’s brain. And you must not jump to hasty conclusions. If we wait with patience, at the end of the chapter he will tell us—and tell us on a basis of irrefutable argument—why he has come to the conclusion he arrives at.” (CWM 9: 250)

IX—The Patience of Our Most Ancient Sages

“It is by Vidya, the Knowledge of the Oneness, that we know God; without it Avidya, the relative and multiple consciousness, is a night of darkness and a disorder of Ignorance. Yet if we exclude the field of that Ignorance, if we get rid of Avidya as if it were a thing non-existent and unreal, then Knowledge itself becomes a sort of obscurity and a source of imperfection. We become as men blinded by a light so that we can no longer see the field which that light illumines.

Such is the teaching, calm, wise and clear, of our most ancient sages. They had the patience and the strength to find and to know; they had also the clarity and humility to admit the limitation of our knowledge. They perceived the borders where it has to pass into something beyond itself. It was a later impatience of heart and mind, vehement attraction to an ultimate bliss or high masterfulness of pure experience and trenchant intelligence which sought the One to deny the Many and because it had received the breath of the heights scorned or recoiled from the secret of the depths. But the steady eye of the ancient wisdom perceived that to know God really, it must know Him everywhere equally and without distinction, considering and valuing but not mastered by the oppositions through which He shines.” (CWSA 21: 3940)

“The body is the obscure burden that he cannot bear; its obstinate material grossness is the obsession that drives him for deliverance to the life of the ascetic. To get rid of it he has even gone so far as to deny its existence and the reality of the material universe. Most of the religions have put their curse upon Matter and have made the refusal or the resigned temporary endurance of the physical life the test of religious truth and of spirituality. The older creeds, more patient, more broodingly profound, not touched with the torture and the feverish impatience of the soul under the burden of the Iron Age, did not make this formidable division; they acknowledged Earth the Mother and Heaven the Father and accorded to them an equal love and reverence; but their ancient mysteries are obscure and unfathomable to our gaze who, whether our view of things be materialistic or spiritual, are alike content to cut the Gordian knot of the problem of existence with one decisive blow and to accept an escape into an eternal bliss or an end in an eternal annihilation or an eternal quietude.” (CWSA 21: 246)

“The discord deepens with the appearance of Mind; for

Mind has its own quarrel with both Life and Matter: it is at constant war with their limitations, in constant subjection to and revolt against the grossness and inertia of the one and the passions and sufferings of the other; and the battle seems to turn eventually, though not very surely, towards a partial and costly victory for the Mind in which it conquers, represses or even slays the vital cravings, impairs the physical force and disturbs the balance of the body in the interests of a greater mental activity and a higher moral being. It is in this struggle that the impatience of Life, the disgust of the body and the recoil from both towards a pure mental and moral existence take their rise.” (CWSA 22: 246-247)

“That equation can only be found if we recognise the purport of our whole complex human nature in its right place in the cosmic movement; what is needed is to give its full legitimate value to each part of our composite being and many-sided aspiration and find out the key of their unity as well as their difference. The finding must be by a synthesis or an integration and, since development is clearly the law of the human soul, it is most likely to be discovered by an evolutionary synthesis. A synthesis of this kind was attempted in the ancient Indian culture. It accepted four legitimate motives of human living,—man’s vital interests and needs, his desires, his ethical and religious aspiration, his ultimate spiritual aim and destiny,—in other words, the claims of his vital, physical and emotional being, the claims of his ethical and religious being governed by a knowledge of the law of God and Nature and man, and the claims of his spiritual longing for the Beyond for which he seeks satisfaction by an ultimate release from an ignorant mundane existence. It provided for a period of education and preparation based on this idea of life, a period of normal living to satisfy human desires and interests under the moderating rule of the ethical and religious part in us, a period of withdrawal and spiritual preparation, and a last period of renunciation of life and release into the spirit. Evidently, if applied as a universal rule, this prescribed norm, this delineation of the curve of our journey, would miss the fact that it is impossible for all to trace out the whole circle of development in a single short lifetime; but it was modified by the theory of a complete evolution pursued through a long succession of rebirths before one could be fit for a spiritual liberation.” (CWSA 22: 703–704)

“This view I base upon my constant experience of the Upanishads; for I have always found in the end that the writers thought clearly & connectedly & with a perfect grasp of their subject & my own haste, ignorance & immaturity of spiritual experience has always been convicted in the end of the sole responsibility for any defect imputed by the presumption of the logical understanding to the revealed Scripture. The text has to be studied with a great patience, a great passivity, waiting for experience, waiting for light & then waiting for still more light.” (CWSA 17: 367)

X—The Divine Patience

“If it is the divine Will, why is it not each victory, why only the final Victory?

No, this is not what it means. It means that finally the Victory is certain. Whatever may be the course of events and the ups and downs and the difficulties and the different issues of the different conflicts, at the end of the curve one is sure of the Victory, for the Divine is sure to be victorious. It may take a longer or shorter time. I have said—in English I used ‘finally: that finally no human will can prevail against the divine Will. Finally means in spite of everything... what we may call divine patience. In spite of all divine patience, there is a given moment when human will exhausts its strength and the divine Will prevails.” (CWM 6: 458)

“It is difficult afterwards because the faith, the surrender, the courage requisite in this path are not easy to the ego-clouded soul. The divine working is not the working which the egoistic mind desires or approves; for it uses error in order to arrive at truth, suffering in order to arrive at bliss, imperfection in order to arrive at perfection. The ego cannot see where it is being led; it revolts against the leading, loses confidence, loses courage. These failings would not matter; for the divine Guide within is not offended by our revolt, not discouraged by our want of faith or repelled by our weakness; he has the entire love of the mother and the entire patience of the teacher. But by withdrawing our assent from the guidance we lose the consciousness, though not all the actuality—not, in any case, the eventuality—of its benefit. And we withdraw our assent because we fail to distinguish our higher Self from the lower through which he is preparing his self-revelation.” (CWSA 23: 64)

“For the inner Godhead never imposes herself, she neither demands nor threatens; she offers and gives herself, conceals and forgets herself in the heart of all beings and things; she never accuses, she neither judges nor curses nor condemns, but works unceasingly to perfect without constraint, to mend without reproach, to encourage without impatience, to enrich each one with all the wealth he can receive; she is the mother whose love bears fruit and nourishes, guards and protects, counsels and consoles; because she understands everything, she can endure everything, excuse and pardon everything, hope and prepare for everything; bearing everything within herself, she owns nothing that does not belong to all, and because she reigns over all, she is the servant of all; that is why all, great and small, who want to be kings with her and gods in her, become, like her, not despots but servitors among their brethren.” (CWM 2: 42–43)

“Always she [Mahasaraswati] holds in her nature and can give to those whom she has chosen the intimate and precise knowledge, the subtlety and patience, the accuracy of intuitive mind and conscious hand and discerning eye of the perfect worker. This Power is the strong, the tireless, the careful and efficient builder, organiser, administrator, technician, artisan and classifier of the worlds. When she takes up the transformation and new-building of the nature, her action is laborious and minute and often seems to our impatience slow and interminable, but it is persistent, integral and flawless.” (CWSA 32: 22)

XI—The Patience of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo

“I do not find that Mother is a rigid disciplinarian. On the contrary, I have seen with what a constant leniency, tolerant patience and kindness she has met the huge mass of indiscipline, disobedience, self-assertion, revolt that has surrounded her, even abuse to her very face and violent letters overwhelming her with the worst kind of vituperation [bitter and abusive language]. A rigid disciplinarian would not have treated these things like that.” (CWSA 32: 579)

“A disciple complained that people took Mother’s time with questions often useless, while less and less time was left for her to attend to apparently more important work. Mother commented:

It has to be like that, since it is like that.

It is perhaps a lesson (it is an indication), but it has a purpose. The lesson that I have to understand, I am trying to understand. I am learning to be patient, oh! such a patience.... Always there are revolts, insults, all that. For me it is absolutely zero and sometimes it is even amusing. When I am in my own condition, the true condition of compassion, it changes nothing, it does not raise even a small ripple on the surface, nothing.

The question was put to me yesterday; I was asked if insult, the feeling of being insulted, and what is called in English ‘self-respect’ (something corresponding a little to amour-propre in French) had any place in the sadhana. Of course, there is no place for it, it is well understood! But I have seen the movement, it was very clear, I have seen that without ego, when the ego is not there, there cannot be this sort of ruffle in the being. Because I went back far into the past to a time when I still used to feel it (many years ago), but now, it is no longer something foreign even, it is something impossible. The whole being, and even (it is strange), even the physical constitution does not understand what that means.” (CWM 11: 54)

“It is perfectly true that the egoistic sense of possession and the habit of falsehood are too common among the sadhaks. You should train yourself however to look at these things in those around you, even when they touch you close, without being disturbed or unquiet. What you must arrive at (of course it cannot be done at once but takes time) is a complete equanimity which sees things and people as they are but is not shaken, angered or grieved by them. We ourselves know what an obstacle all this egoism and falsehood are to our work, but are not impatient because we know also that they are part of human nature and have so much hold that it is difficult for the sadhak to get rid of them even when his mind really wishes to do so. They are with many sadhaks habits stronger than their will. When there is not a strong will to get rid of them or when the sadhak is not fully conscious, then it is all the more difficult. It is only a strong and always increasing awakening of the whole consciousness which can avail and it is that which we try to bring in all without yielding to impatience because of the slowness with which it comes or the imperfect effort of the sadhaks to overcome these defects of their nature.” (CWSA 35: 802)

“It is strange also that you should conclude that she puts no value on you. From the first the Mother has had a special kindness for you; she has appreciated and supported you so steadily that people have accused her of blind partiality towards you just as they accuse her with regard to X. When you were in trouble and difficulty with suggestions and revolts, she was love and patience itself and helped and supported you through all. Afterwards since your sadhana opened, we have been watching solicitously over it,—I have been spending time daily writing answers, giving you knowledge of what you should know, trying to lead you forward with love and care. Why should all this have been done, if we put no value on you?” (CWSA 32: 390)

“Each one has his own way of doing sadhana and his own approach to the Divine and need not trouble himself about how the others do it; their success or unsuccess, their difficulties, their delusions, their egoism and vanity are in her care; she has an infinite patience, but that does not mean that she approves of their defects or supports them in all they say or do. The Mother takes no sides in any quarrel or antagonism or dispute, but her silence does not mean that she approves what they may say or do when it is improper.” (CWSA 32: 398)

“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)

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

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)

“I am well aware that this change is not easy; the dynamic will towards it does not come at once and is difficult to fix and, even afterwards, the sadhaka often feels helpless against the force of habit. Knowing this, the Mother and myself have shown and are still showing sufficient patience in giving time for the true spirit to come up and form and act effectively in the external being of those around us. But if in anyone this part not only becomes obstinate, self-assertive or aggressive, but is supported and justified by the mind and will and tries to spread itself in the atmosphere, then it is a different and very serious matter.” (CWSA 31: 151)

“So what the Mother said was not something unfounded and a mere idea of hers. But it was simply a suggestion to help you. How did your mind come to the conclusion that it was a command to be followed on pain of displeasure, spiritual hanging or rejection and exile? The habit of mental constructions, that is all. Fear? But the fear itself is a mental construction which could have no real foundation if you had remembered the constant indulgence and patience the Mother has always shown to you.” (CWSA 32: 121–122)

“Something of this battle had been going on in this body these last days.... It was really very interesting.... There was outside, coming from outside, an attempt to submit the body to experiences in order to compel it to recognise: ‘No, what has always been will always be; you may try, but it is an illusion’, and so something happened, quite a little disorganisation in the body, and then the body answered with its attitude: a peace like this (gesture of immobility), and its attitude (gesture of hands open): ‘It is as Thou willest, Lord, as Thou willest.’... Like a flash everything disappears! And this has happened several times, at least a dozen times in a day. Then—then the body begins to feel: ’There it is!’... It has this delight, this delight of... having lived the Marvel. It is not as it was, it is no more as it was—it is no more as it was.

One has still to fight on, one must have patience, courage, will, confidence—but it is no more ‘like that’; it is the old thing that seeks to cling—hideous! hideous. But... it is no more like that, no more like that.” (CWM 11: 230–231)

XII—The Nature Evolves with an Amazing Patience

“ ‘What, this mass of electrons, gases, chemical elements, this heap of mud and water and stones and inert metals, how are you going to get life in that? Will the metal walk? can the stone live? will you take mud and water and make out of it a body that can move, feel, act, desire?’ But life came in spite of the impossibility and living forms were developed—plant and tree and living bodies were built out of the protoplasm and molecule; some ingenious force or being evolved slowly out of that through millions of years with an amazing patience, using chemical and biological elements alike, gene and gland and heart and brain and nerve and cell and living tissue and the animal walked and bounded and man arose evolving through tens of thousands, perhaps millions of years in the body of an erect two-footed animal.” (CWSA 28: 264)

XIII—Good Teachers Must Have Unfailing Patience

“To be a good teacher one must have the insight and knowledge of a Guru with an unfailing patience.” (CWM 12: 370)

“The idea of progress belongs to the intelligent will which is active only in very few who are in contact with their psychic being; later on, in those who are mentally more developed and begin to understand the need to develop and control themselves.

I said that the remedy is to raise the consciousness to a higher level. But, naturally, one must start with the level of the consciousness of the captains and instructors themselves.

First of all, they should have a clear conception of what they want to obtain from those for whom they are responsible; and not only that, but they should also have realised in themselves the qualities which they demand from others. Over and above these qualities, they should have developed in their character and action a great deal of patience, endurance, kindness, understanding and impartiality. They should have no likes or dislikes, no attractions or repulsions.

That is why the new group of captains must really

be an elite group in order to set a good example to the pupils and students, if we want them in their turn to adopt the true attitude.” (CWM 12: 353)

For the teachers and instructors

“But if one is truly eager to do one’s best, it is by doing the work that one progresses and learns to do it better and better.

Criticism is seldom useful, it discourages more than it helps. And all goodwill deserves encouragement, for with patience and endurance, there is no progress which cannot be made.

The main thing is to keep the certitude that whatever may have been accomplished, one can always do better if one wants to.

The ideal to attain is an unflinching equality of soul and conduct, a patience that never fails and, of course, the absence of any preference or desire.” (CWM 12: 358–359)

“But as a general and absolute rule, the teachers and especially the physical education instructors must be a constant living example of the qualities demanded from the students; discipline, regularity, good manners, courage, endurance, patience in effort, are taught much more by example than by words. And as an absolute rule: never to do in front of a child what you forbid him to do.” (CWM 12: 361–362)

“The students cannot learn their lessons, even when they have their books.

One must have a lot of patience with young children, and repeat the same thing to them several times, explaining it to them in various ways. It is only gradually that it enters their mind.” (CWM 12: 136) (CWM 16: 197)

“Sweet Mother, during our tournaments there are many who play in a very bad spirit. They try to hurt others in order to win. And we have noticed that even the little ones are learning to do this. How could it be avoided?

With children it is above all ignorance and bad example which cause the harm. So it would be good if, before they begin their games, all the group-leaders, the captains, call together all those they are in charge of and tell them, explain to them exactly what Sri Aurobindo says here, with detailed explanations like those we have given in the two little books The Code of Sportsmanship and The Ideal Child [or What a Child Should Always Remember]. These things must be repeated often to the children. And then, you must warn them against bad company, bad friends, as I told you in another class.

And above all, set them the right example.... Be yourself what you would like them to be. Give them the example of disinterestedness, patience, self-control, constant good humour, the overcoming of one’s little personal dislikes, a sort of constant goodwill, an understanding of others’ difficulties; and that equality of temper which makes children free from fear, for what makes children deceitful and untruthful, and even cunning, is the fear of being punished. If they feel secure, they will hide nothing and you will then be able to help them to be loyal and honest. Of all things the most important is good example. Sri Aurobindo speaks of that, of the invariable good humour one must have in all circumstances, this self-forgetfulness: not to throw one’s own little troubles on others; when one is tired or uncomfortable, not to become unpleasant, impatient. This asks for quite some perfection, a self-control which is a great step on the path of realisation. If one fulfilled the conditions needed to be a true leader, even if only a leader of a small group of children, well, one would already be far advanced in the discipline needed for the accomplishment of the yoga.” (CWM 9: 81)

“But I tell you—for it is a fact—that I have never asked anyone educated here to give lessons without seeing that this would be for him the best way of disciplining himself, of learning better what he is to teach and of reaching an inner perfection he would never have if he were not a teacher and had not this opportunity of disciplining himself, which is exceptionally severe. Those who succeed as teachers here—I don’t mean an outer, artificial and superficial success, but becoming truly good teachers—this means that they are capable of making an inner progress of impersonalisation, of eliminating their egoism, controlling their movements, capable of a clear-sightedness, an understanding of others and a never-failing patience.

If you go through that discipline and succeed, well, you have not wasted your time here.” (CWM 8: 354)

XIV—Children and Patience

“What qualities are necessary for one to be called ‘a true child of the Ashram’?

Sincerity, courage, discipline, endurance, absolute faith in the Divine work and unassailable trust in the Divine Grace. All this must be accompanied by a sustained, ardent and persevering aspiration, and by a limitless patience.” (CWM 13: 113)

“Sweet Mother,

I come back to the same question. What do You mean exactly by ‘categories of children’?

Do these categories correspond only to their character or also to their interests?

The categories of character. In assessing the possibilities of a child, ordinary moral notions are not of much use. Natures that are rebellious, undisciplined, obstinate, often conceal qualities that no one has known how to use. Indolent natures may also have a great potential for calm and patience.

It is a whole world to discover and easy solutions are not much use. The teacher must be even more hard-working than the student in order to learn how to discern and make the best possible use of different characters.” (CWM 12: 373)

“A child should never be scolded. I am accused of speaking ill of parents! But I have seen them at work, you see, and I know that ninety per cent of parents snub a child who comes spontaneously to confess a mistake: ‘You are very naughty. Go away, I am busy’—instead of listening to the child with patience and explaining to him where his fault lies, how he ought to have acted. And the child, who had come with good intentions, goes away quite hurt, with the feeling: ‘Why am I treated thus?’ Then the child sees his parents are not perfect—which is obviously true of them today—he sees that they are wrong and says to himself: ‘Why does he scold me, he is like me’!” (CWM 4: 28)

Prayer Given to the Children of Dortoir Boarding

“We all want to be the true children of our Divine Mother. But for that, sweet Mother, give us patience and courage, obedience, goodwill, generosity and unselfishness, and all the necessary virtues.” (CWM 12: 127)

XV—Even Cats Show Marvellous Patience to Educate Their Kittens

“I had a puss, the first time it had its kittens it did not want to move from there. It did not eat, did not satisfy any call of nature. It remained there, stuck to her kittens, shielding them, feeding them; it was so afraid that something would happen to them. And that was quite unthought out, spontaneous. It refused to move, so frightened it was that some harm might come to them—just through instinct. And then, when they were bigger, the trouble it took to educate them—it was marvellous. And what patience! And how it taught them to jump from wall to wall, to catch their food; how, with what care, it repeated once, ten times, a hundred times if necessary. It was never tired until the little one had done what it wanted. An extraordinary education. It taught them how to skirt houses following the edge of walls, how to walk so as not to fall, what had to be done when there was much space between one wall and another, in order to cross over. The little ones were quite afraid when they saw the gap and refused to jump because they were frightened (it was not too far for them, but there was the gap and they did not dare) and then the mother jumped, it went over to the other side, it called them: come, come along. They did not move, they were trembling. It jumped back and then gave them a speech, it gave them little blows with its paw and licked them, and yet they did not move. It jumped. I saw it do this for over half an hour. But after half an hour it found that they had learnt enough, so it went behind the one it evidently considered the most ready, the most capable, and gave it a hard knock with its head. Then the little one, instinctively, jumped. Once it had jumped, it jumped again and again and again....

There are few mothers who have this patience.” (CWM 5: 242–243)

“Sweet Mother, what kind of love do parents have for their children?

What kind? A human love, don’t they? Like all human loves: frightfully mixed, with all sorts of things. The need of possession, a formidable egoism. At first, I must tell you that a wonderful picture has been painted... many books written, wonderful things said about a mother’s love for her children. I assure you that except for the capacity of speaking about the subject in flowery phrases, the love of the higher animals like the... well, the mammals for their children is exactly of the same nature: the same devotion, the same self-forgetfulness, the same self-denial, the same care for education, the same patience, the same... I have seen absolutely marvellous things, and if they had been written down and applied to a woman instead of to a cat, superb novels would have been made, people would have said: ‘What a person! How marvellously devoted are these women in their maternal love!’ Exactly the same thing. Only, cats could not use flowery language. That’s all.” (CWM 6: 106)

“You had promised that the bullocks would not be beaten, but we have been told by more than one eye-witness that they have been beaten by yourself and the servants, and badly beaten too. We strongly disapprove, we are entirely against this kind of maltreatment. It is not by beating, but by patience and a persistent will without getting into a nervous irritation that work can be taught to animals. They are far more intelligent than you believe.” (CWSA 35: 795)

XVI—Examples of Areas Where Patience Is Needed

1. Once you have decided to do the Yoga and you are conscious that the goal is worth the trouble of a constant and sustained effort, you may begin

2. One must have plenty of patience for the work may be undone many times, you will have do it again until finally it is no longer undone

“Once you have decided upon this, once you are quite conscious that it is so and that the goal is worth the trouble of a constant and sustained effort, you may begin. Otherwise, after a time you will fall flat; you will get discouraged, you will tell yourself, ‘Oh! It is very difficult—I do it and then it is undone, I do it again and it is once again undone, and then I do it again and it is perpetually undone.... Then what? When will I get there?’ One must have plenty of patience. The work may be undone a hundred times, you will do it again a hundred and one times; it may be undone a thousand times, you will re-do it a thousand and one times, until finally it is no longer undone.” (CWM 4: 335)

3. It is true that if one does yoga in the world and in worldly circumstances, it is more difficult, but it is also more complete

4. Because, every minute one must face problems which do not present themselves to someone who has left everything and gone into solitude

5. In life one meets with all sorts of difficulties, beginning with the incomprehension of those around you with whom you have to deal

6. One must be ready to face all difficulties and be armed with patience

7. In yoga one should no longer care for what people think or say; it is an absolutely indispensable starting-point

“This does not mean, however, that one is obliged to get out of the conditions of one’s life: it is the inner attitude which must be totally changed. One may do what one is in the habit of doing, but do it with quite a different attitude. I don’t say it is necessary to give up everything in life and go away into solitude, to an ashram necessarily, to do yoga. Now, it is true that if one does yoga in the world and in worldly circumstances, it is more difficult, but it is also more complete. Because, every minute one must face problems which do not present themselves to someone who has left everything and gone into solitude; for such a one these problems are reduced to a minimum—while in life one meets all sorts of difficulties, beginning with the incomprehension of those around you with whom you have to deal; one must be ready for that, be armed with patience, and a great indifference. But in yoga one should no longer care for what people think or say; it is an absolutely indispensable starting-point. You must be absolutely immune to what the world may say or think of you and to the way it treats you. People’s understanding must be something quite immaterial to you and should not even slightly touch you. That is why it is generally much more difficult to remain in one’s usual surroundings and do yoga than to leave everything and go into solitude; it is much more difficult, but we are not here to do easy things—easy things we leave to those who do not think of transformation.” (CWM 4: 377–378)

8. The work of unification around our psychic centre requires much time and so we must arm ourselves with patience and endurance

1. If we truly want to progress we must reject from us or eliminate in us whatever contradicts the truth of our existence, whatever is opposed to it

2. All the parts, all the elements of our being has to be organised into a homogeneous whole around our psychic centre

“For if we truly want to progress and acquire the capacity of knowing the truth of our being, that is to say, what we are truly created for, what we can call our mission upon earth, then we must, in a very regular and constant manner, reject from us or eliminate in us whatever contradicts the truth of our existence, whatever is opposed to it. In this way, little by little, all the parts, all the elements of our being can be organised into a homogeneous whole around our psychic centre. This work of unification requires much time to be brought to some degree of perfection. Therefore, in order to accomplish it, we must arm ourselves with patience and endurance, with a determination to prolong our life as long as necessary for the success of our endeavour.” (CWM 12: 3–4)

9. The answer to dark periods returned again and again after bright periods of sadhana is patience in the endeavour

10. Till the whole being is not unified around the central psychic Presence patience in the endeavour is required

11. Unifying around psychic Presence is a personal task that each individual must do for himself

12. The effectivity of the action to unify around psychic Presence is in measure of the receptivity and the conscious appeal

“Mother,

I can’t say why I feel too dull to call you; that is for you to reply. Such dull periods come after the bright periods when everything seems to call you and be dedicated to you. In these dull periods, nothing but tamas seems to rule. Generally they pass after a few days.

This is a proof that your whole being is not unified around the central psychic Presence.

This is a personal task that each individual must do for himself. The help is always there but the effectivity of its action is in measure of the receptivity and the conscious appeal.

After all, it is a question of patience in the endeavour.

With love and blessings.” (CWM 17: 311–312)

13. The small beginnings are of the greatest importance and have to be allowed with great patience to develop

1. Examples of small beginnings

2. The neutral quietness is the first step towards the peace

3. The small current or thrill of inner delight the first trickling can lead to the ocean of Ananda

4. The play of lights or colours is the key of the doors of the inner vision and experience

5. The descents that stiffen the body into a concentrated stillness is the first touch which can lead to the presence of the Divine

“The Yogin who has experience knows that the small beginnings are of the greatest importance and have to be cherished and allowed with great patience to develop. He knows for instance that the neutral quiet so dissatisfying to the vital eagerness of the sadhak is the first step towards the peace that passeth all understanding, the small current or thrill of inner delight the first trickling in of the ocean of Ananda, the play of lights or colours the key of the doors of the inner vision and experience, the descents that stiffen the body into a concentrated stillness the first touch of something at the end of which is the presence of the Divine.” (CWSA 30: 14–15)

14. Patience will required to bring the quietude for those who are accustomed to a very active movement of their thought and will

15. The purification and the self-giving take a long time to accomplish and one must have the patience

“Those who are accustomed to a very active movement of their thought and will in all they do, find it difficult to still the activity and adopt the quietude of mental self-giving. This does not mean that they cannot do the Yoga or cannot arrive at self-giving—only the purification and the self-giving take a long time to accomplish and one must have the patience and steady perseverance and resolution to go through.” (CWSA 29: 83)

16. When one begins to control the thought coming into your mind one must begin with an unshakable patience

1. This is because the human mind is a public place open on all sides, and in this public place, things come, go, cross from all directions

2. You will see to what a degree you have to be watchful

3. Keep an extremely clear vision of the ideas which conform to your aspirations and those which do not

4. You must police at every minute that public place where roads from all sides meet, so that all passers-by do not rush in

5. 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

6. When one begins with an unshakable patience then one must say that even if it takes a hundred years, even if it takes several lives, one wants to accomplish and shall accomplish

“Mentally, it is still worse. The human mind is a public place open on all sides, and in this public place, things come, go, cross from all directions; and some settle there and these are not always the best. And there, to obtain control over that multitude is the most difficult of all controls. Try to control the thought coming into your mind, you will see. Simply, you will see to what a degree you have to be watchful, like a sentinel, with the eyes of the mind wide open, and then keep an extremely clear vision of the ideas which conform to your aspirations and those which do not. And you must police at every minute that public place where roads from all sides meet, so that all passers-by do not rush in. It is a big job. 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. One must say, ‘Even if it takes fifty years, even if it takes a hundred years, even if it takes several lives, what I want to accomplish, I shall accomplish’.” (CWM 4: 334–335)

17. The possibilities, which can become fine capacities if properly developed, will take a lot of time, effort and patience to change them into realisations

“I have been feeling unhappy for some time; it seems that You have written to someone about my faults and he is telling everybody. I don’t understand how this can help me. At the moment nothing interests me, and I feel as if I am entering into the dark side of my nature.

It was Sri Aurobindo who wrote that we are aware of the ‘serious failings’ in your nature. Did you by any chance imagine that you have none? If you were more ready to recognise them, we would have less need to refer to them. In any case I take the opportunity to tell you one thing: you certainly have possibilities, which can become fine capacities if properly developed—but for the moment they are no more than possibilities and it would be good to bear in mind that it will take a lot of time, effort and patience to change them into realisations.” (CWM 17: 166–167)

18. The movements of the lower consciousness requires great will to get out of them and so one has to arm oneself with patience

1. A great vigilance is required to avoid falling into the movements of the lower consciousness

“How far I have drifted from the spiritual life, from the true attitude! This business of human love assumes such great proportions that afterwards it becomes difficult to extricate oneself from it. Why is it like this?

A great vigilance is required to avoid falling into the movements of the lower consciousness; and a still greater will is needed to get out of them. So arm yourself with patience and a strong will.” (CWM 17: 134)

19. With training and patience you can acquire a body with which you can get along in life

“With training and patience you can acquire a body with which you can get along in life. Nowadays, people recognise the value of a healthy and balanced life.” (CWM 4: 56)

20. Imaginations can be got rid of in time, if one faces them with calm resolution, detachment and patience

1. The first necessity is not to allow yourself to be upset by this difficulty of a restless mind full of imaginations

2. These imaginations come easily to the human mind, but they can be got rid of in time

3. It is simply a habit that has taken hold of the mind it can be dissolved and cease to recur

4. They are not creations of your own mind, they are foreign matter thrown on it from outside

5. The physical mind which they attack has to learn to see and feel them as something foreign and refuse to accept them

6. You will receive my help and the Mother’s. Keep yourself inwardly confident and open, all will be done

“The first necessity is not to allow yourself to be upset by this difficulty [of a restless mind full of imaginations]. It is one that often occurs, for these imaginations come easily to the human mind, but they can be got rid of in time, and even in a comparatively short time if one faces them with calm resolution, detachment and patience. It is simply a habit that has taken hold of the mind —it can be dissolved and cease to recur.

It will help if you can cease to regard them as creations of your own mind—they are not, they are foreign matter thrown on it from outside. The physical mind which they attack has to learn to see and feel them as something foreign and refuse to accept them. Then they will go. For that you will receive my help and the Mother’s. Keep yourself inwardly confident and open, all will be done.” (CWSA 31: 21–22)

21. Rebellious and unmanageable desires and impulses in men are like wild horses which can be controlled with a little effort and patience

1. To break the rebellious and unmanageable desires need a bridle and the best bridle is the one you put on them yourself, the one called self-control

“A wild horse can be tamed but one never puts a bridle on a tiger. Why is that? Because in the tiger there is a wicked, cruel and incorrigible force, so that we cannot expect anything good from him and have to destroy him to prevent him from doing harm.

But the wild horse, on the other hand, however unmanageable and skittish he may be to begin with, can be controlled with a little effort and patience. In time he learns to obey and even to love us, and in the end he will of his own accord offer his mouth to the bit that is given to him.

In men too there are rebellious and unmanageable desires and impulses, but these things are rarely uncontrollable like the tiger. They are more often like the wild horse: to be broken in they need a bridle; and the best bridle is the one you put on them yourself, the one called self-control.” (CWM 2: 173)

22. To train the vital being is the most difficult part to train and requires great patience

1. The vital being in us is the seat of impulses and desires, of enthusiasm and violence, of dynamic energy and desperate depression, of passions and revolt

2. The vital can set in motion everything, build up and realise

3. The vital can also destroy and mar everything

4. It is a long labour requiring great patience, and it demands a perfect sincerity

“The vital being in us is the seat of impulses and desires, of enthusiasm and violence, of dynamic energy and desperate depression, of passions and revolt. It can set in motion everything, build up and realise, it can also destroy and mar everything. It seems to be, in the human being, the most difficult part to train. It is a long labour requiring great patience, and it demands a perfect sincerity, for without sincerity one will deceive oneself from the very first step, and all endeavour for progress will go in vain.” (CWM 4: 49)

23. To await for the inner inspiration or moved by the light that comes from above needs patience

1. For inner inspiration you must will and will with persistence, and never lose patience

2. If necessary, repeat the same thing a thousand times, knowing that perhaps the thousandth time you will realise the result

“You must be attentive, silent, must await the inner inspiration, not do anything from external reactions, you must be moved by the light that comes from above, constantly, regularly, must act only under the inspiration of that light and nothing else. Never to think, never to question, never to ask ‘Should I do this or that?’, but to know, to see, to hear. To act with an inner certitude without questioning and without doubting, because the decision does not come from you, it comes from above. Well, this may come very soon or one may have to wait perhaps a long time—that depends upon one’s previous preparation, upon many things. Till then you must will and will with persistence, and above all never lose patience or courage. If necessary, repeat the same thing a thousand times, knowing that perhaps the thousandth time you will realise the result.” (CWM 4: 94–95)

24. It is necessary to have a great patience when one is in physical consciousness and its principal difficulty is externalisation and this covering up of the active experience

“It is inevitable that in the course of the sadhana all sorts of conditions should come through which one is led towards the fullness of the true consciousness. You are now, as are most, in the physical consciousness and its principal difficulty is externalisation and this covering up of the active experience so that one does not know what is going on inside or feels as if nothing were going on. When that happens, it means that something has come up, some part or layer of the physical, which needs to be worked on and, when that has been done,—it may take longer or shorter,—the conscious active inner experience recommences. ... Also what you describe as taking place in the head, must be the working of the Force there,—it sometimes gives the impression of a headache. There must be a working in the physical mind to get rid of some difficulty or else to prepare it better for the admission of what comes from above.

It is necessary to have a great patience—so as to go through these conditions and not get apprehensive or restless—and a confidence that all difficulties will be overcome.” (CWSA 31: 406–407)

25. Change in the habit of the physical nature and that needs a long patient work of detail

“Determination is needed and a firm patience, not to be discouraged by this or that failure. It is a change in the habit of the physical nature and that needs a long patient work of detail.” (CWSA 29: 110)

26. The change of the old habitual movements of the nature cannot be done in a single stroke and patience is necessary because it takes time

1. The inner consciousness has to grow in such a way that finally it occupies the outer being also and renders these things impossible

2. Keep the will and the faith and in quietude and patience let the Mother work all out in you

“The change of the old habitual movements of the nature cannot be done in a single stroke; the inner consciousness has to grow in such a way that finally it occupies the outer being also and renders these things impossible. What I have written to you about these things and the attitude to be taken is the knowledge that we have and the truth of the human nature and of sadhana confirmed by our and by all spiritual experience. It is your outer being that has these reactions and not your inner nature. You have only to trust in the Mother and follow what I say and these difficulties will be worked out of the outer being and return no more; but patience is necessary because it takes time, not in you alone, but in all. Do not allow such thoughts as the idea ‘what is the use of spiritual experiences, since my nature is not changed’ etc., for these are thoughts of the mind’s ignorance. Recover the attitude and the resolution that you had taken and were developing. Keep the will and the faith and in quietude and patience let the Mother work all out in you.” (CWSA 32: 296)

“It is not in a day that one can overcome one’s own nature. But with patience and enduring will the Victory is sure to come.” (CWM 14: 166)

27. Patience, patience is required to feel Thy Power and Thy Force in the body because one must be ready

“Yes, many times, several times, the body has asked the question, ‘Why do I not feel Thy Power and Thy Force in me?’ And the reply has always been a smiling one—one puts it into words, but it is without words—the reply is always: ‘Patience, patience, for that to happen you must be ready.” (CWM 10: 228)

28. The difficulties in the nature always rise again and again till you overcome them; they must be faced with both strength and patience

1. All who enter the spiritual path have to face the difficulties and ordeals of the path, those which rise from their own nature and those which come in from outside

2. You must train yourself to overcome this reaction of depression, calling in the Mother’s force to aid you

“All who enter the spiritual path have to face the difficulties and ordeals of the path, those which rise from their own nature and those which come in from outside. The difficulties in the nature always rise again and again till you overcome them; they must be faced with both strength and patience. But the vital part is prone to depression when ordeals and difficulties rise. This is not peculiar to you, but comes to all sadhaks—it does not imply an unfitness for the sadhana or justify hopelessness. But you must train yourself to overcome this reaction of depression, calling in the Mother’s force to aid you.” (CWSA 31: 635)

29. The first necessary form of surrender is trust and confidence and patience in difficulty

30. If trust and patience fail when aspiration is quiescent, that would mean that the sadhak is relying solely on his own effort

“The effort demanded of the sadhak is that of aspiration,

rejection and surrender. If these three are done the rest is to come of itself by the Grace of the Mother and the working of her force in you. But of the three the most important is surrender of which the first necessary form is trust and confidence and patience in difficulty. There is no rule that trust and confidence can only remain if aspiration is there. On the contrary, when even aspiration is not there because of the pressure of inertia, trust and confidence and patience can remain. If trust and patience fail when aspiration is quiescent, that would mean that the sadhak is relying solely on his own effort—it would mean, ‘Oh, my aspiration has failed, so there is no hope for me. My aspiration fails, so what can Mother do?’ On the contrary, the sadhak should feel, ‘Nevermind, my aspiration will come back again. Meanwhile I know that the Mother is with me even when I do not feel her; she will carry me even through the darkest period.’ That is the fully right attitude you must have. To those who have it depression can do nothing; even if it comes it has to return baffled.” (CWSA 32: 139–140) (CWSA 31: 676)

31. The transformation of the external being is the most difficult part of the Yoga and it demands patience

“The defects of which you speak are common to all

human nature and the external being of every sadhak is full of them; to become aware of them is necessary for the transformation, but it must be done with a quiet mind and with the faith and surrender to the Divine and assured aspiration to the higher consciousness which are proper to the psychic being. The transformation of the external being is the most difficult part of the Yoga and it demands faith, patience, quietude and firm determination. It is in that spirit that you have to throw these depressions aside and go steadily on with the Yoga.” (CWSA 31: 207)

32. The external being in every one is always, a difficult animal to handle and it has to be dealt with by patience

“Do not allow yourself to admit any movement of vital depression, still less a depressed condition. As for the external being, it is always, not only in you but in everyone, a difficult animal to handle. It has to be dealt with by patience and a quiet and cheerful perseverance; never get depressed by its resistance, for that only makes it sensitive and aggrieved and difficult, or else discouraged. Give it rather the encouragement of sunlight and a quiet pressure, and one day you will find it opening entirely to the Grace.” (CWSA 31: 187)

33. With Patience explain to the black spot which comes from the ego its mistake that it may disappear

1. The little black spot which comes from the ego clouds your judgment

2. 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

3. If you truly want to know, you must draw back a step and look

4. Then with patience, from the height of your consciousness, you must explain to this thing its mistake, and in the end it will disappear

5. 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

“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.” (CWM 4: 88)

34. We must meet all adverse circumstances with patience

“Yes, those who live in their ego live constantly in an ugly drama. If people were a little less selfish things would not be so bad.

Meanwhile we must meet all these adverse circumstances with patience, endurance and

equanimity.” (CWM 14: 258)

35. If you have the patience to wait, the mind can change and realise a certain truth in the higher consciousness

“If one realises a certain truth in the higher consciousness but the mind resists, should the mind be forced to accept this new truth?

If you succeed in forcing it, very well. But it is not so easy. It is not enough to decide to force it for this to happen! It revolts. And it is not the only one to revolt. Then what are you going to do with this mind in revolt? Leave it to do what it likes? Exhaust all that? It is not a very fine procedure!

The functioning is not the same with everyone. There are people who have a great light in the mind (or think they have it!), they know things, they know how the world and others ought to behave and, moreover, they are sure that they, they are very far on the road, but when they begin to act they are more stupid than the little street urchin. Why? Because it is not the mind which has decided, and even if it has decided, it is not the mind which has executed; what has executed does not recognise at all the authority of the mind, but tells it: ‘Leave me alone, don’t bother me! I act according to my own inspiration!’ Then, what are you going to do? Try to give a lesson to your mind? You may always try, but it is not sure that you will succeed. It is not an easy problem.... Human nature is very unstable; after having thought in one way, it thinks in another; after having felt in one way, it feels in another, and so on; nothing lasts: the good not longer than the bad; the bad, a little longer than the good! But anyway, this does not last indefinitely. So, if you have the patience to wait, surely it will change!” (CWM 4: 177–178)

36. To overcome the satisfactions of ordinary life and completely consecrate yourself to the Divine can be done by much patience

37. If one wants to consecrate to the Divine then there is no question of personal incapacity, since the Mother’s help and protection is always there

“My dear child,

I understand your difficulty very well. It is very common and can only be solved with much endurance in the will and much patience.

For on the one hand you want to consecrate yourself to the Divine and take your place in the divine

life in the making.

On the other hand you want the satisfactions of ordinary life and the pleasures of the vital—without considering, however, that these pleasures can only be obtained through much struggle and effort and that always they go hand in hand with worry and suffering.

On the first path, there is no question of personal incapacity, since our help and protection are always there. Indeed, you must open yourself to this help and protection and learn to use them to conquer the adversary who is trying to draw you towards the lower animal consciousness.

Love from your mother who never leaves you.” (CWM 16: 136)

38. When one wants to make a complete offering to the Mother one must have an obstinate will and a great patience

1. But once one has taken the resolution to completely offer to the Mother, the divine help will be there to support and to help

2. This help is felt inwardly in the heart

“Sweet Mother,

How can one remember at every moment that whatever one does is for You? Particularly when one wants to make a complete offering, how should one proceed, never forgetting that it is for the Divine?

To achieve that, one must have an obstinate will and a great patience. But once one has taken the resolution to do it, the divine help will be there to support and to help. This help is felt inwardly in the heart.” (CWM 16: 398)

39. The Divine Wisdom and Power can liberate the true Person in us and attain to a divine manhood if we yield to its workings with patience

“But our more difficult problem is to liberate the true Person and attain to a divine manhood which shall be the pure vessel of a divine force and the perfect instrument of a divine action. Step after step has to be firmly taken; difficulty after difficulty has to be entirely experienced and entirely mastered. Only the Divine Wisdom and Power can do this for us and it will do all if we yield to it in an entire faith and follow and assent to its workings with a constant courage and patience.” (CWSA 23: 247)

40. To get into contact with the inner being and change the outer consciousness from the inner is the work of the sadhana and it is sure to come with patience

“It is not really on the capacity of the outer nature that success depends, (for the outer nature all self-exceeding seems impossibly difficult), but on the inner being and to the inner being all is possible. One has only to get into contact with the inner being and change the outer view and consciousness from the inner—that is the work of the sadhana and it is sure to come with sincerity, aspiration and patience.” (CWSA 29: 31–32) (CWSA 35: 131–132)

41. Adopt more patient course by which the doors of the inner being will automatically swing open

1. More patient course is developing the sattwic qualities and building up the inner meditative quietude

2. It is possible by strenuous meditation to open doors to the inner being and it may lead to conditions of sadhana which may be very turbid, chaotic, beset with unnecessary dangers

3. It is necessary to keep the sattwic quietude, patience, vigilance

4. To hurry nothing, to force nothing, not to be led away by any strong lure or call of the intermediate stage

5. For there are many vehement pulls from the forces of the inner planes which it is not safe to follow

“You did quite right in first developing the sattwic qualities and building up the inner meditative quietude. It is possible by strenuous meditation or by certain methods of tense endeavour to open doors on to the inner being or even break down some of the walls between the inner and outer self before finishing or even undertaking this preliminary self-discipline, but it is not always wise to do it as that may lead to conditions of sadhana which may be very turbid, chaotic, beset with unnecessary dangers. By adopting the more patient course you have arrived at a point at which the doors of the inner being have begun almost automatically to swing open. Now both processes can go on side by side, but it is necessary to keep the sattwic quietude, patience, vigilance,—to hurry nothing, to force nothing, not to be led away by any strong lure or call of the intermediate stage which is now beginning before you are sure that it is the right call. For there are many vehement pulls from the forces of the inner planes which it is not safe to follow.” (CWSA 30: 257–258)

42. To grow into a divine life the wrappings and disguises of our outer being must be extricated with patience

1. In the growth into a divine life the spirit must be our first preoccupation

2. Until we have built up in ourselves an inner life of the spirit, it is obvious that no outer divine living can become possible

“In the growth into a divine life the spirit must be our first preoccupation; until we have revealed and evolved it in our self out of its mental, vital, physical wrappings and disguises, extricated it with patience from our own body, as the Upanishad puts it, until we have built up in ourselves an inner life of the spirit, it is obvious that no outer divine living can become possible. Unless, indeed, it is a mental or vital godhead that we perceive and would be,—but even then the individual mental being or the being of power and vital force and desire in us must grow into a form of that godhead before our life can be divine in that inferior sense, the life of the infra spiritual superman, mental demi-god or vital Titan, Deva or

Asura.” (CWSA 22: 1058)

43. Where there is great complexity which takes in many sides and reconcile many conflicting conclusions as in Upanishads then we must follow it with patience

“What a magnificent exterminating sweep do we hear for instance in that old renowned sentence, brahma satyaṁ jagan mithyā, the Eternal alone is true, the universe is a lie, and how these four victorious words seem to settle the whole business of God and man and world and life at once and for ever in their uncompromising antithesis of affirmation and negation. But after all perhaps when we come to think more at large about the matter, we may find that Nature and Existence are not of the same mind as man in this respect, that there is here a great complexity which we must follow with patience and that those ways of thinking have most chance of a fruitful truth-yielding, which like the inspired thinking of the Upanishads take in many sides at once and reconcile many conflicting conclusions. One can hew material for a hundred philosophies out of the Upanishads as if from some bottomless Titans’ quarry and yet no more exhaust it than one can exhaust the opulent bosom of our mother Earth or the riches of our father Ether.” (CWSA 13: 308)

44. Instead of suicide face your difficulties with fortitude and patience

1. Suicide is a weak and unmanly evasion and it is found to be useless

2. Since the same misery continues after death

3. One has to come back to earth and face the same difficulties under worse conditions

4. The Gita has never said that suicide can under any circumstances lead to Nirvana

5. The death spoken of in Gita is a natural or a Yogic death with the mind concentrated with faith and absorption in the Divine

“I must remind you of your promise not to yield to sorrow and despair and to face your difficulties with fortitude and patience. Suicide is not only a weak and unmanly evasion, but it is worse than useless since the same misery continues after death intensified in the consciousness which can think of nothing else and one has to come back to earth and face the same difficulties under worse conditions. The Gita has never said that suicide can under any circumstances lead to Nirvana; the death spoken of is a natural or a Yogic death with the mind concentrated with faith and absorption in the Divine.” (CWSA 31: 750)

45. To recover your true inner vital self you must have steadfast patience, cheerfulness

1. Then when you are back to your right walk and stature the hostile forces wait a little and strike again

2. The  whole thing repeats itself with a mechanical regularity

3. It takes time, steadfast endeavour, long continued aspiration and a calm perseverance to get anywhere in Yoga

4. Equanimity, steadfast patience, cheerfulness is required to recover your true inner vital self and get rid of this intruder

5. If you give the hostile forces its rein, it is extremely difficult to get on to anywhere

6. The hostile forcesmust go, its going is much more urgently required

“Then when you are back to your right walk and stature they [hostile forces] wait a little and strike again and the  whole thing repeats itself with a mechanical regularity. It takes time, steadfast endeavour, long continued aspiration and a calm perseverance to get anywhere in Yoga; that time you do not give yourself because of these recurrent swingings away from the right attitude. It is not vanity or intellectual questioning that is the real obstacle—they are only impedimenta,—but they could well be overcome or one could pass beyond in spite of them if this part of the vital were not there or were not so strong to intervene. If I have many times urged upon you equanimity, steadfast patience, cheerfulness or whatever is contrary to this spirit, it is because I wanted you to recover your true inner vital self and get rid of this intruder. If you give it rein, it is extremely difficult to get on to anywhere. It must go,—its going is much more urgently required than the going of the intellectual doubt.” (CWSA 31: 775)

46. If you can acquire and keep patience and fortitude the hold hostile forces have will progressively disappear

“The cure may take time because your nervous system has been long subjected to these [hostile forces] influences and, when they are evicted, they return with violence to re-establish their hold. But if you can acquire and keep patience and fortitude and the right consciousness and right attitude with regard to these things, the hold they have will progressively disappear.” (CWSA 31: 804)

47. To become a conscious and perfect instrument cannot be done in a day so not to become anxious or uneasy

1. You can be a conscious and perfect instrument only when you are no longer acting in obedience to the ignorant push of the lower nature

2. You can be a perfect instrument when you surrender to the Mother and aware of her higher Force acting within you

3. One has to act in so far as one has to aspire, offer oneself, assent to the Mother’s working, reject all else, more and more surrender

4. All else will be done in time so there is no need for anxiety or depression or impatience

“You can be a conscious and perfect instrument only when you are no longer acting in obedience to the ignorant push of the lower nature, but in surrender to the Mother and aware of her higher Force acting within you. So here too your intuition was perfectly true.

But all this cannot be done in a day. So you are once more right in not being anxious or uneasy. One must be vigilant, but not anxious and uneasy, ... The Mother’s Force will act and bring the result in its own time—provided one offers all to her and aspires and is vigilant, calling and remembering her at all times, rejecting quietly all that stands in the way of the action of her transforming Force. Your second view of this was more from the right angle of vision than the first. To say that it is not I who have to act, so I need not mind, is to say too much—one has to act in so far as one has to aspire, offer oneself, assent to the Mother’s working, reject all else, more and more surrender. All else will be done in time; there is no need for anxiety or depression or impatience.” (CWSA 32: 243)

48. The phrase ‘Leaving the result to the Divine’ implies dependence on the Divine Grace and equanimity and patience in the persistent aspiration

“Everything should be for the sake of the Divine, this [aspiration for the Divine’s Presence] also. As for leaving the result to the Divine, it depends on what you mean by the phrase. If it implies dependence on the Divine Grace and equanimity and patience in the persistent aspiration, then it is all right. But it must not be extended to cover slackness and indifference in the aspiration and endeavour.” (CWSA 29: 171)

49. Aspire, await with patience for the result

“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)

50. If you want to learn to see and have visions, then it is a very long, very slow discipline and there are very few people who have the necessary patience and endurance to go to the end of the training

“I must tell you that this kind of capacity may come spontaneously, without effort—one may be a born clairvoyant. They are not necessarily very intelligent people, their vital consciousness may be mediocre, but they are born clairvoyant. It is not a sign of a great development—it comes from something else, from a capacity of the parents, of past lives, etc. But if you are not born clairvoyant, and if you do not carry in you the other extreme, I mean a psychic being wholly conscious and fully developed which leads its own independent life in the body, and you want to learn to see and have visions, then it is a very long, very slow discipline and there are very few people who have the necessary patience and endurance to go to the end of the training.

It is interesting but it is not essential, one can do

without it. It is the same as with dreams. But if you can develop this capacity, it can make your life more rich, it can make your consciousness progress more quickly.” (CWM 4: 125–126)

51. For subtle things like seeing or hearing through a wall or seeing at a distance you must practise for months with patience, with a kind of obstinacy

“But for more subtle things, the method is to make for yourself an exact image of what you want, to come into contact with the corresponding vibration, and then to concentrate and do exercises—such as to practise seeing through an object or hearing through a sound, or seeing at a distance. For example, once, for a long time, for several months, I was confined to bed and I found it rather boring—I wanted to see. I was in a room and at one end there was another little room and at the end of the little room there was a kind of bridge; in the middle of the garden the bridge became a staircase leading down into a very big and very beautiful studio, standing in the middle of the garden. I wanted to go and see what was happening in the studio, for I was feeling bored in my room. So I would remain very quiet, close my eyes and send out my consciousness, little by little, little by little, little by little. And day after day—I chose a fixed time and did the exercise regularly. At first you make use of your imagination and then it becomes a fact. After some time I really had the physical sensation that my vision was moving; I followed it and then I could see things downstairs which I knew nothing about. I would check afterwards. In the evening I would ask, ‘Was this like that? And was that like this?’

But for each one of these things you must practise for months with patience, with a kind of obstinacy. You take the senses one by one, hearing, sight, and you can even arrive at subtle realities of taste, smell and touch.” (CWM 10: 132–133)

52. In occultism you may try for years together and not have the least experience for you need an infinite patience to learn occultism

“[In occultism] And then, you must also have an infinite patience; because just as it takes many years to learn how to handle the different chemical substances, just as you have to work for long periods without getting any visible results when you want to discover the least thing that’s new, so in occultism you may try for years together and not have the least experience.” (CWM 6: 192)

53. One must have much patience and a very wide and very complex vision to understand how things happen in Nature

“O Nature, material Mother,

Thou hast said that thou wilt collaborate

and there is no limit

to the splendour of this collaboration.

New Year Message, 1 January 1958

Sweet Mother, will you explain the message for this year?

...

I will tell you only one thing: you should not misinterpret the meaning of this experience and imagine that from now on everything is going to take place without any difficulties and always in a manner that favours our personal desires. It is not on this plane. ...

It is something much deeper: Nature, in her play of forces, has accepted the new Force which has manifested and included it in her movements. And as always, the movements of Nature are on a scale which is infinitely beyond the human scale and not visible to an ordinary human consciousness. It is an inner, psychological possibility which has come into the world rather than a spectacular change in earthly events. ... One must have much patience and a very wide and very complex vision to understand how things happen.” (CWM 9: 245–246)

XVII—Other Quotations on Patience

If everything is not in its place then it will cost you much trouble and patience to find your way in this muddle and put everything right

“Everything is clean when each thing is in its place. And your books at school, your clothes and toys at home should each have a place which is really its own and which no other thing can claim. Otherwise, battles will follow and your books will get torn, your clothes stained and your toys lost. Then it will cost you much trouble and patience to find your way in this muddle and put everything right. Whereas it is so convenient when things are kept in order.” (CWM 2: 234)

“The more intense the experiences that come, the higher the forces that descend, the greater become the possibilities of deviation and error. For the very intensity and the very height of the force excites and aggrandises the movements of the lower nature and raises up in it all the opposing elements in their full force, but often in the disguise of truth, wearing a mask of plausible justification. There is needed a great patience, calm, sobriety, balance, an impersonal detachment and sincerity free from all taint of ego or personal human desire. There must be no attachment to any idea of one’s own, to any experience, to any kind of imagination, mental building or vital demand; the light of discrimination must always play to detect these things, however fair or plausible they may seem. Otherwise the Truth will have no chance of establishing itself in its purity in the nature.” (CWSA 29: 422–423)

“As a help in the beginning Dilip suggests that I should write long letters to friends, translate others’ poems and writings, read a lot of books etc. And Amal says I should write essays and criticism of poems and of others’ writings. Please tell me if these are the right ways to begin.

Of course you can do all that. If you can really do it it will at least be a lesson in work and application and patience, if nothing else.” (CWSA 27: 589–590)

“I hope that you will soon acquire the faith and patience for which you aspire and that the oscillations cease. For me the path of Yoga has always been a battle as well as a journey, a thing of ups and downs, of light followed by darkness followed by a greater light—but nobody is better pleased than myself when a disciple can arrive out of all that to the smooth and clear path which the human physical mind quite rightly yearns for.” (CWSA 35: 372)

“It is always the pragmatic man who has no value for metaphysical thought or for the inner life except when they help him to his one demand, a dharma, a law of life in the world or, if need be, of leaving the world; for that too is a decisive action which he can understand. But to live and act in the world, yet be above it, this is a ‘mingled’ and confusing word the sense of which he has no patience to grasp.” (CWSA 19: 27)

The tamasic man is ordinarily slow to act, dilatory in his steps, easily depressed, ready soon to give up his task if it taxes his strength, his diligence or his patience.” (CWSA 19: 502)

“With patience one arrives always.” (CWM 14: 166)

“Admit,—for it is true,—that this age of which materialism was the portentous offspring and in which it had figured first as petulant rebel and aggressive thinker, then as a grave and strenuous preceptor of mankind, has been by no means a period of mere error, calamity and degeneration, but rather a most powerful creative epoch of humanity. Examine impartially its results. Not only has it immensely widened and filled in the knowledge of the race and accustomed it to a great patience of research, scrupulosity, accuracy,—if it has done that only in one large sphere of inquiry, it has still prepared for the extension of the same curiosity, intellectual rectitude, power for knowledge to other and higher fields, ...” (CWSA 13: 185)

“If you have the love for me you speak of ... you will listen to what I say and renew and carry out your promise to go through with your quest to the end with patience and courage.” (CWSA 31: 751–752)

“Mother,

Since X has taken over the mill the flour is not good, so the bread does not rise properly and it remains hard. But people are saying that I have given orders to reduce the size of the bread for the sake of economy! X is reported to have said that I am standing in his way, otherwise he would have got control over the Bakery. As far as I know myself, I am not keen about being a departmental head; I have had enough taste of it. At the same time I do not want to run away from a task given to me. If I have to continue, please show me some way of being more useful. If you have someone else in view, I won’t mind in the least to step aside.

I wanted you to look after the money, because it was the only way to be sure that the money would come to me.

But the organisation of the working of that section can be given to others provided they agree to collaborate. I ask you a little more time and patience and expect things to take a more definite form.

As for the displeasure of people they always grumble and complain. We have not to give it any importance.” (CWM 17: 288–289)

“ ‘Violence is never a good way to bring victory to a cause such as yours. How can you hope to win justice with injustice, harmony with hatred?’

‘I know. This opinion is shared by nearly all of us. As for me, I have a very particular aversion to bloody actions; they horrify me. Each time we immolated a new victim, I felt a pang of regret, as if by that very act we were moving away from our goal.

‘But what are we to do when we are driven by events and when we are faced with adversaries who will not shrink even from mass slaughter in the hope of overcoming us? But that they can never do. Though we may perish to the last man, we shall not falter in the sacred task that has fallen to us, we shall not betray the holy cause which we have sworn in our heart of hearts to serve to the last breath.’

These few words had been spoken with sombre determination, while the face of this obscure hero was marked with such noble mysticism that I would not have been astonished to see the martyr’s crown of thorns encircling his brow.

‘But as you were telling us in the beginning,’ I replied, ‘since you have yourselves been forced to recognise that this open struggle, this struggle of desperate men, although certainly not without an intrepid greatness, is at the same time vain and foolish in its recklessness, you should renounce it for a time, fade into the shadows, prepare yourselves in silence, gather your strength, form yourselves into groups, become more and more united, so as to conquer on the auspicious day, helped by the organising intelligence, the all-powerful lever which, unlike violence, can never be defeated.

‘Put no more weapons in the hands of your adversaries, be irreproachable before them, set them an example of courageous patience, of uprightness and justice; then your triumph will be near at hand, for right will be on your side, integral right, in the means as in the goal’.” (CWM 2: 16 17)

In the story ‘The Virtues’ by the Mother virtue Patience comes as follows.

“And around Charity thronged a shining escort, Kindness, Patience, Gentleness, Solicitude, and many others.” (CWM 2: 6)

Part II—Impatience

XVIII—Impatience Comes from

“The impatience and restless disquietude come from the vital which brings that even into the aspiration.” (CWSA 29: 60)

“It is the psychic that gives the true aspiration—if the vital is purified and subjected to the psychic, then the vital gives intensity—but if it [vital] is unpurified it brings in a rajasic intensity with impatience and reactions of depression and disappointment. As for the calm and equality needed, it must come down from above through the mind.” (CWSA 29: 60)

“… one finds that certainly impatience has been created to counteract inertia …” (CWM 11: 196)

“As a matter of fact, during this period, I have studied and observed this phenomenon: how the vibration of desire is added to the vibration of Will emitted by the Supreme—in our little everyday actions. And with the vision from above, if we take care to maintain the consciousness of this vision from above, we can see how this vibration emitted was exactly the vibration emitted by the Supreme, but instead of obtaining the immediate result expected by the surface consciousness, it was meant to set off a whole series of vibrations and to achieve another, more distant and more complete result. I am not speaking of great things or of actions on a terrestrial scale, I am speaking of the very small things in life: for example, saying to someone, ‘Give me this’, and instead of giving it, that someone does not understand and gives something else. So if we do not take care to preserve an overall vision, a certain vibration may occur, for example a vibration of impatience or of dissatisfaction, together with the impression that the vibration from the Lord is not understood and not received. Well, this little added vibration of impatience or, in fact, of not understanding what is happening, this impression of a lack of receptivity or response, is of the same quality as desire—it cannot be called a desire, but it is the same kind of vibration—this is what comes to complicate things. If we have the complete, exact vision, we know that ‘Give me this’ will produce something other than the immediate result and that this other thing will bring in something else which is exactly what should be. I do not know if I am making myself clear, it is rather complicated! But this gave me the key to the difference in quality between the vibration of Will and the vibration of desire, and at the same time the possibility of eliminating this vibration of desire by a wider and more total vision—wider, more total and far-seeing, that is to say, the vision of a greater whole.” (CWM 10: 175–176)

“The narrowness etc. of which you complain are normal to the physical nature. It is the same thing acting in a different way which makes X rebellious to advice and full of irritation and bad temper when her mistakes are shown to her. The physical nature of almost everybody is like that, intolerant, easily irritated, lacking in patience when dealing with others. But this physical nature can be replaced and changed by the psychic nature and you have had the experience of what this psychic nature is and how it acts.” (CWSA 31: 385)

XIX—In Yoga Impatience Is …

“The true Power is always quiet. Restlessness, agitation, impatience are the sure signs of weakness and imperfection.” (CWM 14: 137)

“Impatience is always a mistake, it does not help but hinders. A quiet happy faith and confidence is the best foundation for sadhana; for the rest a constant opening wide of oneself to receive with an aspiration which may be intense, but must always be calm and steady. Full Yogic realisation does not come all at once, it comes after a long preparation of the Adhara which may take a long time.” (CWSA 29: 111–112)

“Therefore there must be a constant insistence on one main idea, the self-surrender to the Master of our being, God within us and in the world, the supreme Self, the universal Spirit. The buddhi dwelling always in this master idea must discourage all its own lesser insistences and preferences and teach the whole being that the ego whether it puts forth its claim through the reason, the personal will, the heart or the desire-soul in the prana, has no just claim of any kind and all grief, revolt, impatience, trouble is a violence against the Master of the being.” (CWSA 24: 723)

“A certain amount of purification is necessary before there can be any realisation of the Divine and that is what has been going on in you. It is after all not a very long time since the real purification began and it is never an easy work. So the impatience may be natural, but it is not exactly reasonable.” (CWSA 29: 46)

5.

“I am weary of the childish impatience which cries & blasphemes and denies the ideal because the Golden Mountains cannot be reached in our little day or in a few momentary centuries.” (CWSA 12: 464)

XX—Difference Between Aspiring Intensity and Impatience

“One has only to be patient.

Sri Aurobindo also has written this: Aspire intensely, but without impatience.... The difference between intensity and impatience is very subtle—it is all a difference in vibration. It is subtle, but it makes all the difference.” (CWM 10: 200)

“That [fiery aspiration] is all right, that is the psychic aspiration, the psychic fire. Where the vital comes in is in the impatience for result and dissatisfaction if the result is not immediate. That must cease.” (CWSA 29: 60)

“The physical consciousness is always in everybody in its own nature a little inert and in it a constant strong aspiration is not natural, it has to be created. But first there must be the opening, a purification, a fixed quietude, otherwise the physical vital will turn the strong aspiration into over-eagerness and impatience or rather it will try to give it that turn. Do not therefore be troubled if the state of the nature seems to you to be too neutral and quiet, not enough aspiration and movement in it. This is a passage necessary for the progress and the rest will come.” (CWSA 29: 62)

“When that veiling activity is there, much work has to be carried on behind the mobile screen of the mind and the sadhak thinks nothing is happening when really much preparation is being done. If you want a more swift and visible progress, it can only be by bringing your psychic to the front through a constant self-offering. Aspire intensely, but without impatience.” (CWSA 29: 139)

“At first the peace and calm are not continuous, they come and go, and it usually takes a long time to get them settled in the nature. It is better therefore to avoid impatience and to go on steadily with what is being done. If you wish to have something beyond the peace and calm, let it be the full opening of the inner being and the consciousness of the Divine Power working in you. Aspire for that sincerely and with a great intensity but without impatience and it will come.” (CWSA 30: 45)

“The aspiration must be intense, calm and strong and not

restless and impatient, then alone aspiration can be stable.” (CWSA 29: 60)

XXI—When There Is Impatience in Yoga

“But it [opening] may take a long or a short time according to the prepared or unprepared condition of the mind, heart and body; so if one has not the necessary patience, the effort may be abandoned owing to the difficulty of the beginning.” (CWSA 29: 107)

“The bhakta looks for it [grace], but he is ready to wait in perfect reliance, even if need be all his life, knowing that it will come, never varying in his love and surrender because it does not come now or soon. That is the spirit of so many songs of the devotees, which you have sung yourself; I heard one such song from you in a record some time ago and a very beautiful song it was and beautifully sung—‘Even if I have not won thee, O Lord, still I adore.’ What prevents you from having that, is the restless element of vital impatience and ever recurring or persisting disappointment at not having what you want from the Divine. It is the idea, ‘I wish so much for it, surely I ought to have it; why is it withheld from me?’ But wanting, however strongly, is not a passport to getting; there is something more to it than that. Our experience is that too much vital eagerness and insistence often blocks the way, it makes a sort of obstructing mass or a whirl of restlessness and disturbance which leaves no quiet space for the Divine to get in or for the thing wished for to come. Often it does come, but when the impatience has been definitely renounced and one waits, quietly open, for whatever may be (or for the time not be) given. But so often when you are preparing for a greater progress in the true devotion the habit of this vital element stands up and takes hold and interrupts the progress made.” (CWSA 29: 473–474)

“As in the world, so in ourselves, we cannot see God because of his workings and, especially, because he works in us through our nature and not by a succession of arbitrary miracles. Man demands miracles that he may have faith; he wishes to be dazzled in order that he may see. And this impatience, this ignorance may turn into a great danger and disaster if, in our revolt against the divine leading, we call in another distorting Force more satisfying to our impulses and desires and ask it to guide us and give it the Divine Name.” (CWSA 23: 64)

“It is difficult to acquire or to practise this faith and steadfastness on the rough and narrow path of Yoga because of the impatience of both heart and mind and the eager but soon faltering will of our rajasic nature. The vital nature of man hungers always for the fruit of its labour and, if the fruit appears to be denied or long delayed, he loses faith in the ideal and in the guidance. For his mind judges always by the appearance of things, since that is the first ingrained habit of the intellectual reason in which he so inordinately trusts.” (CWSA 23: 244)

“Here it is written: ‘No snatching or clutching at realisation.’

What does that mean—‘snatching and clutching at realisation’, Sweet Mother?

No snatching, no...? Clutching.

You know what ‘clutching” means? (The child expresses the meaning by a gesture. Mother laughs.)

All right, it means... Does he say one should not or one cannot?

One should not, Sweet Mother.

That means one must not try to do it, because it does not obey this kind of movement. These people try to progress through violence. They have no patience, they have no persistence; and when a desire arises in them they must realise it immediately.

Now, they want to have something—let us say a change in their character or a change in the circumstances or a set of things—and then, they want it at once; and as this usually does not happen all at once, they pull it down from above. This is what he calls ‘clutching’. They seize it, pull it towards themselves. But in this way one has neither the real thing nor the true movement; one mixes violence with one’s aspiration and this always produces some confusion somewhere, and moreover one cannot have the true thing, one can only have an imitation of the true thing; because this is not how it comes, not by pulling it as though one were pulling it by the tail; it will not come. Clutching! One clutches the rope when one wants to climb up. That’s how it is when one pulls! That’s exactly the movement one should not have once one holds the rope. That’s all.” (CWM 6: 420–421)

“You must not get into the habit of going to bed late like that.

It is not good—you will quickly spoil your eyesight, and that would be the end of your beautiful embroideries. The nerves also get tired and then one no longer has the sure hand or the precise movement, one loses one’s patience and calm and the work one does is no longer neat and trim; everything becomes an approximation and one has to give up all hope of achieving any kind of perfection. I don’t think this is the result you want to obtain!” (CWM 16: 83)

“During the spraying of solignum the mason got a jet of it in his eyes.

Precaution, much precaution should be taken so that such a thing may not happen. Do you realise our responsibility and WHAT IT MEANS if something serious happens?

The lack of precaution is a part of the movement of hurry and impatience.” (CWM 16: 16)

“It is not possible to get peace of mind if you indulge in vital ego and the turbulent play of the vital mind, revolt, demand and impatience. Abhiman, revolt, violent insistence on the satisfaction of claims and wishes are foreign to the spirit of the Yoga, they can only bring disturbance and trouble.” (CWSA 29: 239)

“But to expect and demand it [realisation] so soon and get fed up because it does not come and declare Yoga impossible except for two or three in the ages would betoken in the eyes of any experienced Yogi or sadhaka a rather rash and abnormal impatience. Most would say that a slow development is the best one can hope for in the first years and only when the nature is ready and fully concentrated towards the Divine can the definitive experience come.” (CWSA 29: 112) (CWSA 35: 241)

“It is an impatience and restlessness in the vital which makes it feel as if it were no use staying here because things are not moving forward. Sadhana is a thing which takes time and needs patience. There are often periods of quiescence in which a working is going on behind of which the mind is not aware—all seems then to be inert and dull; but if one has patience and confidence, the consciousness passes through these periods to new openings and things which seemed to be impossible to effect at that time, get done. The impulse to rush away is always a mistake—perseverance in the path is the one rule to cling to and with that finally all obstacles are overcome.” (CWSA 29: 111)

“For some time I have been thinking about ceasing to write to you. Today I was overcome by vital problems. Finally at 4.30 I sent the letter I had written earlier. Why should the idea of not writing or not sending the letter cause so much difficulty?

It is because the idea came from a wrong source and was an attempt of the wrong forces to enter and disturb. It was not so much the idea in itself, but the idea as an expression of dissatisfaction and impatience. Immediately the hostiles took hold of it as a line of entry for all the old movements once associated with this kind of dissatisfaction and impatience. Moreover these letters of yours and my answers have been a strong means of canalising our help and making it habitually available to you and effective—not by the words themselves alone but by the forces behind them.” (CWSA 35: 453)

“But everything that brings down the consciousness is an obstacle in one’s progress. If you have a desire it creates an obstacle in your progress; ... and there are hundreds of these things every day.

For example, every movement of impatience, every movement of anger, every movement of violence, every tendency to dissimulation, every deformation of the truth, whether big or small, ... all this is constantly in the way. All this, every one of these movements, big or small, passing or lasting, all are like so many stones to build the wall to prevent yourself from progressing.” (CWM 7: 294)

“Balance is indispensable, the path that carefully avoids opposite extremes is indispensable, too much haste is dangerous, impatience prevents you from advancing; and at the same time, inertia puts a drag on your feet.” (CWM 8: 285)

“I want to live the divine life; if it is impossible in this life I shall doubtless do it in another life.

There is no need at all to think of other lives; you must strive to realise the Divine in this life itself, and you will do it. But you must not be impatient. It is your impatience that is causing your depression.” (CWM 17: 114)

“The one thing you have to avoid is losing patience; for that only prolongs the vital trouble. There is no reason for it. When the vital is to be changed (fundamentally) it always gives constant trouble like this until one can seat oneself fixedly in the calm of the inner consciousness and keep the vital movements quite on the surface.” (CWSA 31: 138)

“I have a severe pain in my throat, neck and the back of my head. The attacks are intolerable and I am losing patience.

You must not lose patience, this does not hasten the cure. On the contrary, you must keep a peaceful faith that you are going to be cured.” (CWM 15: 148)

“It is the fact that people who are grateful and cheerful and ready to go step by step, even by slow steps, if need be, do actually march faster and more surely than those who are impatient and in haste and at each step despair or murmur.” (CWSA 29: 112) (CWSA 35: 241)

“This synthesis with its spiritual insight, largeness of view, symmetry, completeness did much to raise the tone of human life; but eventually it collapsed: its place was occupied by an exaggeration of the impulse of renunciation which destroyed the symmetry of the system and cut it into two movements of life in opposition to each other, the normal life of interests and desires with an ethical and religious colouring and the abnormal or supernormal inner life founded on renunciation. The old synthesis in fact contained in itself the seed of this exaggeration and could not but lapse into it: for if we regard the escape from life as our desirable end, if we omit to hold up any high offer of life-fulfilment, if life has not a divine significance in it, the impatience of the human intellect and will must end by driving at a short cut and getting rid as much as possible of any more tedious and dilatory processes; if it cannot do that or if it is incapable of following the short cut, it is left with the ego and its satisfactions but with nothing greater to be achieved here. Life is split into the spiritual and the mundane and there can only be an abrupt transition, not a harmony or reconciliation of these parts of our nature.” (CWSA 22: 703–704)

“Only by the light and power of the highest can the lower be perfectly guided, uplifted and accomplished. The lower life of man is in form undivine, though in it there is the secret of the divine, and it can only be divinised by finding the higher law and the spiritual illumination. On the other hand, the impatience which condemns or despairs of life or discourages its growth because it is at present undivine and is not in harmony with the spiritual life, is an equal ignorance, andham tamah.” (CWSA 25: 180)

“Do not admit these suggestions of despair or impatience. Give time for the Mother’s force to act.” (CWSA 32: 299)

XXII—The Impatience and the Sadhana

“By the sadhana the vital must be quieted down; it must receive from the self above its quiet goodwill and equality to all things and from the psychic its general kindness or love. This will come, but it may take time to come. You must get rid of all inner as well as all outer movements of anger, impatience or dislike. If things go wrong or are done wrongly, you will simply say, ‘The Mother knows’ and go on quietly doing or getting things done as well as you can without friction.” (CWSA 31: 312)

“A third cause comes in the period of transformation,—one part of the nature changes and one feels for a time as if there had been a complete and permanent change. But one is disappointed to find it cease and a period of barrenness or lowered consciousness follows. This is because another part of the consciousness comes up for change and a period of preparation and veiled working follows which seems to be one of unenlightenment or worse. These things alarm, disappoint or perplex the eagerness and impatience of the sadhak; but if one takes them quietly and knows how to use them or adopt the right attitude, one can make these unenlightened periods also a part of the conscious sadhana. So the Vedic Rishis speak of the alternation of ‘Day and Night both suckling the divine Child’.” (CWSA 30: 59)

“There are always pauses of preparation and assimilation between two movements. You must not regard these with fretfulness or impatience as if they were untoward gaps in the sadhana. Besides, the Force rises up lifting part of the nature on a higher level and then comes down to a lower layer to raise it; this motion of ascent and descent is often extremely trying because the mind partial to an ascent in a straight line and the vital eager for rapid fulfilment cannot understand or follow this intricate movement and are apt to be distressed by it or resent it. But the transformation of the whole nature is not an easy thing to accomplish and the Force that does it knows better than our mental ignorance or our vital impatience.” (CWSA 30: 63–64)

“My dear little smile,

You must not lose patience or courage; everything will turn out all right.

The condition you were in while embroidering the ‘Silence’ flower cannot return as it was before, for in this world things never repeat themselves in exactly the same way—everything changes and progresses. But the state of mental peace you have known is nothing compared to the one—much deeper and completer—which you will come to know.

You must keep your aspiration intact and your will to conquer all obstacles; you must have an unshakable faith in the divine grace and the sure victory.

Sri Aurobindo is working for your transformation—how can there be doubt that he will triumph!” (CWM 16: 59)

“Free yourself from all exaggerated self-depreciation and the habit of getting depressed by the sense of sin, difficulty or failure. These feelings do not really help, on the contrary, they are an immense obstacle and hamper the progress. They belong to the religious, not to the Yogic mentality. The Yogin should look on all the defects of the nature as movements of the lower prakriti common to all and reject them calmly, firmly and persistently with full confidence in the Divine Power—without weakness or depression or negligence and without excitement, impatience or violence.” (CWSA 31: 763)

“You can also tell him that there are two stages in the Yoga, one of preparation and one of the actual intensive sadhana. It is the first that he can undertake. In this stage aspiration in the heart with prayer, bhakti, meditation, a will to offer the life to the Divine are the important things. Purification of the nature is the first aim to be achieved. There should be no over-eagerness for experiences but such as come should be observed and, if helpful to the right attitude and true development, accepted. All that flatters the ego or feeds it should be rejected. There should be no impatience if the progress is slow or difficulties many—all should be done in a calm patience—and full reliance on the Divine Mother. This period tests the capacity of the sadhak and the sincerity of his aspiration towards the Divine.” (CWSA 35: 551)

“The difficulty of the physical nature comes inevitably in the course of the development of the sadhana. Its obstruction, its inertia, its absence of aspiration or movement have to show themselves before they can be got rid of—otherwise it will always remain undetected, hampering even the best sadhana and preventing its completeness. This coming up of the physical nature lasts longer or less according to the circumstances, but there is none who does not go through it. What is necessary is not to get troubled or anxious or impatient, for that only makes it last more, but to put entire confidence in the Mother and quietly persist in faith, patience and steady will for the complete change. It is so that the Mother’s force can best work in the being.” (CWSA 31: 389–390)

“This complete self-surrender must be the chief mainstay of the sadhaka because it is the only way, apart from complete quiescence and indifference to all action,—and that has to be avoided,—by which the absolute calm and peace can come. The persistence of trouble, aśānti, the length of time taken for this purification and perfection, itself must not be allowed to become a reason for discouragement and impatience. It comes because there is still something in the nature which responds to it, and the recurrence of trouble serves to bring out the presence of the defect, put the sadhaka upon his guard and bring about a more enlightened and consistent action of the will to get rid of it.” (CWSA 23: 723)

“To give oneself is the secret of sadhana, not to demand and acquire. The more one gives oneself, the more the power to receive will grow. But for that all impatience and revolt must go; all suggestions of not getting, not being helped, not being loved, going away, of abandoning life or the spiritual endeavour must be rejected.” (CWSA 29: 345) (CWSA 32: 482)

“One has then to persist, to put always the will on the side of the Divine, rejecting what has to be rejected, opening oneself to the true Light and the true Force, calling it down quietly, steadfastly, without tiring, without depression or impatience, until one feels the Divine Force at work and the obstacles beginning to give way.” (CWSA 29: 86)

“There is a stage in the sadhana in which the inner being begins to awake. Often the first result is the condition made up of the following elements:

(1) A sort of witness attitude, ...

(2) A state of neutral equanimity in which there is neither joy nor sorrow, only quietude.

(3) A sense of being something separate from all that happens, ...

(4) An absence of attachment to things, people or events.

It seems as if this condition were trying to come in you; but it is still imperfect. For instance in this condition (1) there should be no disgust or impatience or anger when people talk, only indifference and an inner

peace and silence.” (CWSA 30: 241–242)

“To control speech is to stand back from the speech impulse and observe it, not to say whatever the impulse makes you say but only to speak what one really needs to say or chooses to say, not to speak in haste or anger or impatience or lightly, not to talk at random or say what is harmful. It does not necessarily mean to speak very little, though that is often helpful.” (CWSA 31: 85)

“There is a stage in the transformation when the Power is pressing on the outer being, especially the vital, and bringing down the higher consciousness. But the natural movements of the vital (anger, restlessness and impatience) are frequently breaking out and disturbing the work. Do not be shaken by that but remain as separate as possible from these movements and let the Force work.” (CWSA 31: 119)

“Turn from these dark thoughts and look to the Mother only, not with impatience for the result and desire, but with trust and confidence and let her workings bring you quietude and the renewal of the progress towards the psychic opening and realisation. That will bring surely and without doubt the fuller faith and the love which you seek.” (CWSA 29: 34–35)

“The physical consciousness has to become balanced, filled with the light and force from above, conscious and responsive. That cannot be done in a day—so go on steadily and dismiss both discouragement and impatience.” (CWSA 31: 371)

“Prāyopaveśana [fasting for a long time] would be quite the wrong movement, it would be a sort of Satyagraha against the Divine. In essence it is an attempt to force the Divine to do what one wants instead of trusting to him to do what is best according to his own divine will and wisdom; it is a culminating act of vital impatience and disappointed desire, while the true movement is a pure aspiration and an ardent surrender.” (CWSA 29: 473)

“You must not yield to impatience and let it bring thoughts of the old kind that cannot possibly help the working but must impede it. These thoughts that come are not true. Those who left, left because they mingled their own ego with the sadhana —ambition, vanity and other wrong movements—and wanted to use the force that sadhana gave them for these things,—or they had to go because the pull of the old life, family, home, action in the world outside was too strong for them. Also the idea that Mother is leading all others happily along and they are becoming perfect and only you are left out, is the usual delusion that comes when one allows despondency to rise. Almost all have these difficulties to overcome and these difficulties rise again and again till the inner being is sufficiently developed to make them impossible.” (CWSA 32: 295–296)

“The whole thing is to keep yourself open to the Mother. The preparation of the nature for the decisive experiences always takes time and should be a continuous self-opening without discouragement or impatience for immediate results.” (CWSA 32: 159)

“What is there in you is the capacity for response to these suggestions [of unfitness for Yoga] that still remains owing to the stamp of the past habit on the physical, especially the subconscient physical. I have explained to you what happens—that these things when rejected by the mind and vital descend into the subconscient or else go out into the environmental consciousness and from there they can return when pushed by the hostile forces. It is in these two ways that the hostiles try to recover their hold. But the rising from the subconscient is not so important except for its long persistence—it comes up in dream or it is, in the waking consciousness, fragmentary. But when it comes from the environmental consciousness then it can be a strong attack and it is evidently that which is taking place now. I think what lends force to these attacks and tends to upset you, is a feeling of impatience somewhere that things are not going forward, progress of a definite kind is not being made and that these things are not done with already for ever. A period of apparent halt is not necessarily an adverse thing, it can be a preparation for a fresh progress of a more decisive character—that often happens in the sadhana—but you have to keep vigilantly the advance gained in spite of attacks.” (CWSA 31: 779)

XXIII—Curb the Mind’s Impatience

“It is necessary to curb the mind’s impatience a little. Knowledge is progressive—if it tries to leap up to the top at once, it may make a hasty construction which it will have afterwards to undo. The knowledge and experience must come by degrees and step by step.” (CWSA 31: 24)

“For so long as the mind is attached either by wish or predilection, passion or impulse, prejudgment or impatience, so long as it clings to anything & limits its pure & all-comprehensive wideness of potential knowledge, the wideness of Varuna in it, it cannot attain to the self-effulgent nature of Truth, it can only grope after & grasp portions of Truth, not Truth in itself & in its nature.” (CWSA 14: 70)

XXIV—Anger Is a Violent Impatience

“The mind’s view of people and things must necessarily be either limited and defective or erroneous—to go on judging by it is now a waste of time. Wait for the new consciousness to develop and show you all in a new and true light. Then the tendency to anger which arises from this mind and is a violent impatience directed against things the mind and vital do not like, would have no ground to rise at all—or if it rose without cause could be more easily rejected. Rely for the sadhana on the Mother’s grace and her Force, yourself remembering always to keep only two things, quietude and confidence. For things and people, leave them to the Mother also; as you have difficulties in your nature, so they have too; but to deal with them needs insight, sympathy, patience.” (CWSA 31: 269)

“All pessimism is to that extent a denial of the Spirit, of its fullness and power, an impatience with the ways of God in the world, an insufficient faith in the divine Wisdom and Will that created the world and for ever guide it.” (CWSA 25: 179)

XXV—Get Rid of Impatience

“You must get rid of all inner as well as all outer movements of anger, impatience and dislike. If things go wrong or are done wrongly, you will simply say, ‘The Mother knows’ and go on quietly doing or getting things done as well as you can without friction.” (CWM 14: 264)

XXVI—How the Impatience in Yoga Will Disappear

“Impatience and over eagerness for the result at once are natural to the human vital; it is by firm confidence in the Mother that they will disappear. The love, the belief in her as the Divine to whom your life is given,—oppose with that every contrary feeling and then those contrary feelings will after a time no longer be able to come to you.” (CWSA 29: 111)

“It is quite natural that the unsteadiness of the physical mind should interfere with the settling of full and constant quietude and faith—it always does with everybody, but that does not mean that this quietude and faith will not or cannot settle in the nature. All that I meant was that you should try to get a constant will for that quietude, so that when the restlessness or unsteadiness come across, your will to quiet might meet it or soon reappear and dispel the disturbance. That would make the elimination of the restlessness or impatience easier; but in any case the Mother’s force is there working behind the variations of the surface consciousness and it will bring you through them.” (CWSA 31: 33)

XXVII—The Time of Impatience Is Gone

“There is a background (it is that particularly), a background of unconscious negation which is behind everything, everything, everything, still; it is still there everywhere—you eat, you breathe, you receive this negation.... It is still a colossal work to transform all that. But when one is, ... in the other state, it appears so natural, so simple, that you ask yourself why it is not like that, why it appears so difficult; and then, as soon as you are on the other side, it is... (Mother holds her head within her hands). The mixture is still there, without doubt.

Indeed, the ordinary state, the old state is consciously (that is to say, it is a conscious perception) that of death and suffering.

And then in the other state, death and suffering appear as things absolutely... unreal. There!

Here, take it (Mother gives a flower of transformation).

No impatience.

A trustful patience.

In truth, everything is for each one as good as it can be. All the time it is the old movements that get impatient.... That is to say, when one sees the all, one finds that certainly impatience has been created to counteract inertia—but now it is done with, that time has gone.” (CWM 11: 196)

“Whether the thing to be done takes a thousand years or only a year according to the human computation, does not matter at all, if you are one with the Divine Consciousness; for then you leave outside you the things of the human nature and you enter into the infinity and eternity of the Divine Nature. Then you escape from this feeling of a great eagerness of hurry with which men are obsessed, because they want to see things done. Agitation, haste, restlessness lead nowhere. It is foam on the sea; it is a great fuss that stops with itself. Men have a feeling that if they are not all the time running about and bursting into fits of feverish activity, they are doing nothing. It is an illusion to think that all these so-called movements change things. It is merely taking a cup and beating the water in it; the water is moved about, but it is not changed for all your beating. This illusion of action is one of the greatest illusions of human nature. It hurts progress because it brings on you the necessity of rushing always into some excited movement. If you could only perceive the illusion and see how useless it all is, how it changes nothing! Nowhere can you achieve anything by it. Those who are thus rushing about are the tools of forces that make them dance for their own amusement. And they are not forces of the best quality either.” (CWM 3: 66–67)

XXVIII—Other Quotations on Impatience

“The psychic yearning brings no reaction of impatience, dissatisfaction or disturbance.” (CWSA 30: 377)

“In true courage there is no impatience and no rashness.” (CWM 14: 170)

“My heart is at peace, my mind is free from impatience, and in all things I rely on Thy will with the smiling confidence of a child.” (CWM 15: 211)

“Impatience does not help—intensity of aspiration does. The use of keeping the consciousness uplifted is that it then remains ready for the inflow from above when that comes. To get as early as possible to the highest range one must keep the consciousness steadily turned towards it and maintain the call. First one has to establish the permanent opening—or get it to establish itself, then the ascension and frequent, afterwards constant descent. It is only afterwards that one can have the ease.” (CWSA 27: 12)

“The idea you have given is a very vast one, but if the epic faculty develops in you there is no reason why you should not carry it out. Only there must be no impatience. Milton waited twenty years before he started the epic he had dreamt of. Also from the point of view and kind of style in which you want to write it, you will have not only to get the access to the inspiration of the overhead poetry but to be quite open to the flow of that consciousness—otherwise you would only do small poems in it like Amal’s, such a vast work would be impossible. At present go on with your development—you have the epic flow but not as yet the epic building, that must come in small things before you can do it in large ones. It will come in time, but time is necessary.” (CWSA 27: 618)

XXIX—Short Summary

Part I

I—Patience in Yoga Is ...

1.      Patience is the capacity to wait steadily for the Realisation to come

2.      Patience is indispensable for all realisation

3.      Patience is one of the native attributes of the Deva nature

4.      Patience is one of the qualities in the Indian conception of the best, śreṣṭha, the good and nobleman, ārya

5.      One of the dominant qualities of soul type of Brahmin is Patience

a.      Soul-power of the Brahmana has a poise turned from the patience to meditation, which dominates and quiets the turmoil of the will and passions and makes for high thinking and pure living

II—What Is Not Patience

1.      Indifference is not patience

2.      Excessive patience without dignity or good cause and submit to the mockery of his friends is not a virtue

3.      They are weak characters who can, like sheep, be

driven by a mere bark, lacking in spirit and more forbearing than they should be

III—Only the Spirit Is Capable of Illimitable Patience

1.      It is only the spirit which is capable of an illimitable patience

2.      The spirit has illimitable patience because it is detached and yet intimate acceptance the spirit carries into both an infinite calm and power

3.      When the personal will merges with the supreme Will it increases the will to an immense forcefulness while giving it an eternal patience

a.      Generally the personal will is naturally subordinate to the senses

b.      The Yogin begins to subordinate his personal will as the supreme Will is attracting him upwards

c.      In time the personal will merges with the supreme Will and obeys implicitly the transcendent

d.      In this change there is no annihilation of the will power

e.      This change increases the will to an immense forcefulness while giving it an eternal patience

f.      This temperament delivers one from all leashes of straining and desire

4.      One of the things that the divine atmosphere is

made up of is patience

5.      When the psychic being grows within, it brings patience

6.      When the psychic being grows, then one no longer regards everything from the point of view of one’s own ego

7.      When one goes into a deeper consciousness one acquires patience and tolerance

IV—In the Integral Yoga, There Must Be an Unshakable Patience

1. In all Yoga, the first requisite is patience

2. In the long and difficult Integral Yoga there must be an unshakable patience

3. The ardours of the heart and the violences of the eager will seek to take the kingdom of heaven by storm and can have miserable reactions

4. Patience is the essential conditions of the spiritual life

5. Patience is required until a greater Power than our mental self directly intervenes to effect a more easy and rapid transformation

6. Sadhana of surrender requires above all an unflinching patience

a.      The three stages of surrender are

b.      The attempt of the ego to enter into contact with the Divine

c.      The wide, full and laborious preparation of the whole lower Nature by the divine working to receive and become the higher Nature

d.      And the eventual transformation

7. For learning to work in the true Yogic way, one of the many qualities required is patience

8. Patience is our first great necessary lesson in Yoga

9. Patience is full of a calm and gathering strength which watches and prepares itself for the hour of swift great strokes, few but enough to change destiny

a.      God has all time before him and does not need to be always in a hurry

b.      God is sure of his aim and success and cares not if he has to break his work a hundred times to bring it to nearer perfection

10. In sadhana there must be no over-eagerness and a cheerful trust and patience

11. Patience and firm resolution are necessary in every method of sadhana

a.      Aspiration and will of consecration calling down a greater Force to do the work is a method which brings great results, but it takes a long time

12. Integral Yoga asks for a greater wideness, a greater patience because after winning one’s personal battle he has to win it for others

13. It is true that a great patience is needed in sadhana

14. Not to be over-eager to have realisation at once

15. A work has to be done in you and is being done; help it to be done by keeping an attitude of firm faith and confidence

16. Patience and equanimity and good feeling for all are the first needs of the sadhak

17. A constant trust and patience must be cultivated and must be acquired especially when things go against

18. Even if the sadhak has the capacity of the ancient Rishis or the strength of a Vivekananda, one cannot  hope to keep during the early years of his sadhana a continuous union with the Divine or height of aspiration

19. All have had to pass through the ordeal and test

20. The qualities required in Yoga are patience quiet endurance, calm resolution to go through to the end and triumph

21. It is the descent of the trickle that gives assurance of the possibility of the downpour

22. One has only to go on and by one’s patience and deserve the downpour

23. Without deserving, one must stick on till one gets the downpour

23. In Yoga the experience is a promise and foretaste but gets shut off till the nature is ready for the fulfilment

24. Regardless of all imperfections, in Yoga what counts in the end is sincerity and with it the patience to persist in the path

a.      If imperfections were a bar, then no man

could succeed in Yoga; for all are imperfect

b.      Those who have the greatest power for Yoga very often have had the greatest imperfections

c.      This is because a force greater than one’s outer self, the force of the Spirit, the drive of the soul’s need, pushes them through the cloud

d.      Imperfections can be stumbling blocks and give one a bad fall for the moment, but not a permanent bar

e.      Obscurations due to some resistance in the nature can be more serious causes of delay, but they too do not last for ever

V—Why We Should Be Patient in Yoga

1.      The Divine is concealed behind a thick veil and does not answer at once or in early stage to our call

2.      Or the Divine gives only a glimpse and then withdraws and waits for us to be ready

3.      The means to find the Divine must be accepted and there must be persistence in the will and the patience in the labour

4.      It is a very big change that has to be made in Yoga so patience is needed

5.      Old things try to stick as much as possible

6.      The new that has to come, has to develop and the consciousness takes time to assimilate them and make

them normal to the nature

7.      Keep firm faith in your mind that the thing needed is being done and will be done fully

8.      One must be very patient because we have to deal with a consciousness which is very slow, very heavy, very obstinate

9.      Our consciousness is not able to advance rapidly and clings to what it has, to what has appeared to it as truth

10.      The effect to be lasting must really be the effect of a transformation

11.      Sri Aurobindo says that endure and you’ll conquer, bear and you’ll vanquish

12.      Triumph comes to the most enduring

13.      The result of the Yogic processes is not, except in rare cases, immediate and one must apply them with patience

14.      Patience is required because the result of Yoga is sometimes long in coming if there is much resistance in the outer nature

15.      Without establishing in oneself patience and perseverance, this Yoga cannot be done

16.      For many difficulties have to be faced and it takes years and years to overcome them definitely and altogether

17.      Difficulties will always be there at the beginning and for as long a time as is necessary for the change

18.      Difficulties are bound to disappear if they are met by patience

19.      The same battle with the hostile forces must be won several times

20.      That is why one must be armed with patience

21.      This Yoga is not easy and cannot be done without the rising of many obstacles and much lapse of time

22.      So if you take it up it must be with a firm resolve to carry it through to the end with patience and courage

23.      In Integral Yoga the way is a virgin ground in which the paths have yet to be cut and built

24.      The obstacles and difficulties in the way of success are formidable and demand patience

25.       The aim and the method of Integral Yoga is not the same as ordinary Yoga

26.      The results of other Yoga’s are component part of Integral Yoga

27.      The end result of other Yoga’s is the beginning of Integral Yoga

28.      Integral Yoga needs patience, because it means a change both of the radical motives and of each part and detail of the nature

29.      When you come to the point where you make a resolution to give myself entirely to the Mother immediately all that stands in the way does rise up

30.      The thing to be done is to stand back, observe and reject, and not allow these things to get hold of you

31.      Keep your central will separate from them and call in the Mother’s Force to meet them

32.      To know that it is the Divine who has chosen you and that is why you run after Him should give you confidence that one is predestined

33.      If one is predestined, then even if there are mountains of difficulties, what can that matter since one is sure to succeed

34.      This gives an indomitable courage to face all difficulties and a patience that stands all trials

35.      If there is resistance, then it is natural that it should take more time

36.      Then the work should be done from within so as to prepare the nature and undermine the resistance

37.      The demand for patience is not so terribly unreasonable

38.      The Mother’s love is always there and the imperfections of human nature do not count against that love

39.      The only thing is that you must become aware of it

40.      To be aware of the Mother’s love, the psychic must come in front

41.      The psychic knows about the Mother’s love while the mind, vital and physical does not know

42.      The Mother’s force is working to bring the psychic to come in front

43.      It needs time to prepare the other parts so that

they also may know and feel the Mother’s force

44.      Therefore the patience is necessary

45.      We should have the confidence that through all the delays and difficulties of the sadhana the Mother is leading you and will surely lead you home to her

46.      The success will come sooner or later, it is for that reason the patience is indispensable

47.      To have patience is not a Himalayan condition or impossibility

48.      Everything will come in its time so keep a confident patience

VI—The Attitude of Patience Required in Yoga

1.      In Yoga you must arm yourself with an endless patience and endurance

2.      You do a thing thousand times if necessary, but you do it till it gets done

3.      One may do the yoga for a number of years without noticing the least result

4.      If you want to do Yoga you must persist and persist with such a will that you should be ready to do it for ten lifetimes, a hundred lifetimes if necessary, in order to succeed

5.      It may not be like that, but the attitude must be like that

6.      The attitude we should all have towards

transformation in the Integral Yoga

7.      Have as much energy and ardour as if we were certain of achieving it in our present life

8.      The patience we must have as if we are ready if centuries are needed to realise it

9.      Persevere as if one knows that one has to labour for thousand years

10.      That which one aspires may have been fixed for thee in thy hundredth attempt

11.      Sri Aurobindo while preaching calm and patience also preaches energy to stride swiftly

12.      For the goal is far and not to rest unduly, for thy Master is waiting for you at the end of thy journey

13.      The ideal attitude of the sadhaka is to have an endless patience as if he had all eternity for his fulfilment

14.      Yet to develop the energy that shall realise now

15.      The right positive attitude is that I want the Divine and the Divine only

16.      Since I want and need the Divine, I shall surely arrive, however long it takes

17.      Till I do arrive I shall persist and endure with patience and courage

18.      Sri Aurobindo wants us to wait on the Mother’s working in full patience and confidence

19.      Have the patience to deny nothing that may possibly be true

20.      The certitude of the Victory gives an infinite

patience

VII—Benefits of Patience in Yoga

1.      With untiring patience what one does is well done

2.      If somebody has a hundred difficulties and has patience and endurance then he will have tremendous realisations

3.      With patience any difficulty can be overcome

4.      If there is a patient will to arrive at the higher consciousness in spite of all obstacles, then the opening in one form or another is sure to arrive

5.      Vital patience is indispensable for all progress

6.      If one gives oneself entirely to the Divine and live only for Him pursuing it with an unfailing patience then one finds the certitude of total fulfilment and a constant luminous peace

7.      Enduring patience is one of the components of the improved quality of the recipient consciousness in us

8.      This recipient consciousness can bear without breaking when there is the rush of lights, powers and experiences from the supraphysical planes

9.      Accomplishment is without any doubt the fruit of patience

10.      With patience we shall prepare ourselves to receive the Supramental Force

VIII—Patience Needed to Understand Sri Aurobindo’s Works

1.      If you feel impossible to understand when making an effort to understand means it is within your consciousness, otherwise you could not try to understand it

2.      Just as the Mother and Sri Aurobindo is in your consciousness, just as what Sri Aurobindo and the Mother has written is also in your consciousness, otherwise you would have no contact with it

3.      But for the moment it is impossible to understand, for want of a few small cells in the brain

4.      These cells develop through attention, concentration and effort

5.      When you have made an effort to understand, after a few hours or a few days or a few months, new convolutions will be formed in your brain

6.      So long as these convolutions are not there, you may make an effort but you will not understand

7.      The only thing necessary is to want to understand and to have the necessary patience

8.      One should have will or aspiration or desire to understand

9.      Aspiration makes an opening in our consciousness to let the thing enter

10.      This will build up in the brain the elements

necessary to express itself

11.      Then after some period you open the book once again and read the same sentence, and it seems as clear as crystal to you

12.      If one reads Sri Aurobindo many of our questions would become useless, for Sri Aurobindo has already answered them

13.      People probably have neither the time nor the patience nor the will, to read Sri Aurobindo

14.      Reading Sri Aurobindo’s The Life Divine should be taken as an opportunity to develop the philosophical mind and the capacity to arrange ideas in a logical order and establish an argument on a sound basis

15.      While reading The Life Divine one must not jump to hasty conclusions

16.      If we wait with patience, at the end of the chapter Sri Aurobindo will tell us why he has come to the conclusion he arrives at

IX—The Patience of Our Most Ancient Sages

1.      Our most ancient sages had the patience to find and to know for they perceived the borders where it has to pass into something beyond itself

2.      The steady eye of the ancient wisdom perceived that to know God really, it must know Him everywhere equally and without distinction, considering and valuing but not mastered by the oppositions through which He shines

3.      The older creeds were more patient for they did not make the formidable division of matter and spirit

4.      They acknowledged Earth and Heaven and accorded them an equal love and reverence

5.      These ancient mysteries are obscure to us and we view things to be materialistic or spiritual and accept an escape into an eternal bliss or an end in an eternal annihilation or an eternal quietude

6.      The discord of Mind with Life and Matter slays the vital cravings and impairs the physical force in the interests of a greater mental activity and a higher moral being

7.      It is in this struggle that the impatience of Life, the disgust of the body and the recoil from both towards a pure mental and moral existence take their rise

8.      What is needed is to give its full legitimate value to each part of our composite being and find out the key of their unity

9.      This can be discovered by an evolutionary synthesis

10.      A synthesis of this kind was attempted in the ancient Indian culture which accepted four legitimate motives of human living

11.      The four motives are man’s vital interests and needs, his desires, his ethical and religious aspiration, his ultimate spiritual aim and destiny

12.      The text of the Upanishads has to be studied with a great patience, waiting for experience, waiting for light

13.      The writers of Upanishads have thought clearly and connectedly and with a perfect grasp of their subject

14.      But our own haste and immaturity of spiritual experience has always been convicted in the end for any defect imputed by the presumption of the logical understanding to the revealed Scripture

X—The Divine Patience

1.      The Divine Patience is that the Divine allows the course of events and all the ups and downs

2.      The Divine Patience is that the Divine allows the difficulties and the different issues of the different conflicts

3.      But at the end of the curve one is sure of the Divine Victory

4.      There is a given moment when human will exhausts its strength and the divine Will prevails and that is the Divine Patience

5.      The divine Guide within has the entire love of the mother and the entire patience of the teacher

6.      The divine uses error in order to arrive at truth, suffering in order to arrive at bliss, imperfection in order to arrive at perfection

7.      The ego cannot see where it is being led; it revolts

against the leading, loses confidence, loses courage

8.      These failings for the divine Guide within is not offended by our revolt, not discouraged by our want of faith or repelled by our weakness

9.      We fail to distinguish our higher Self from the lower through which he is preparing his self-revelation

10.      The inner Godhead never imposes herself but encourages without impatience

11.      The inner Godhead is the mother whose love bears fruit and nourishes, guards and protects, counsels and consoles

12.      She understands everything, she can endure everything, excuse and pardon everything, hope and prepare for everything

13.      Mahasaraswati can give patience to those whom she has chosen

14.      When Mahasaraswati takes up the transformation and new-building of the nature, her action is laborious and minute and often seems to our impatience slow and interminable

XI—The Patience of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo

1.      The Mother meets the huge mass of indiscipline, disobedience, self-assertion, revolt with patience

2.      People took Mother’s time with questions, often useless

3.      With patience the Mother bears all the revolts and insults

4.      The Mother in her true condition of compassion does not raise even a small ripple on the surface

5.      The egoistic sense of possession and the habit of falsehood are too common among the sadhaks

6.      This egoism and falsehood is an obstacle to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s work

7.      Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are not impatient because they know that this are part of human nature and have so much hold that it is difficult for the sadhak to get rid of them even when his mind really wishes to do so

8.      It is only a strong and always increasing awakening of the whole consciousness which can avail

9.      It is this which Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are trying to bring in all without yielding to impatience because of the slowness with which it comes or the imperfect effort of the sadhaks to overcome these defects of their nature

10.      When the sadhak is in trouble and difficulty with suggestions and revolts, the Mother has been love and patient and helped and supported through all

11.      Sri Aurobindo have been spending time daily writing answers, giving knowledge of what one should know, trying to lead the sadhak forward with love and care

12.      The Mother has an infinite patience, but that does not mean that she approves of their defects or supports

them in all they say or do

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

14.      The Mother knows what human nature is and how these things come

15.      This is why the Mother has patience and love for all

16.      Human nature has insincerities, disobediences and looseness in its very grain

17.      If Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were not patient, there would be little hope of its changing the human nature

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

19.      Sri Aurobindo is well aware that the change in Yoga is not easy

20.      The dynamic will towards change does not come at once; the sadhaka often feels helpless against the force of habit

21.      Knowing this the Mother and Sri Aurobindo have shown sufficient patience in giving time for the true spirit to come up and form and act effectively in the external being

22.      If you had remembered the patience the Mother has always shown to you then these mental constructions of fear would not have come

23.      Experience of the Mother’s body requires patience

XII—The Nature Evolves with an Amazing Patience

1      The Nature evolves through millions of years with an amazing patience

XIII—Good Teachers Must Have Unfailing Patience

1.      To be a good teacher one must have unfailing patience

2.      The captains and instructors should have developed in their character and action a great deal of patience

3.      The captains and instructors should also have realised in themselves the qualities which they demand from others

4.      With patience and endurance, there is no progress which cannot be made

5.      One of the ideal to attain for the teachers and instructors is patience that never fails

6.      As a general and absolute rule, the teachers and physical education instructors must be a constant living example of the qualities demanded from the students

7.      The quality of patience is taught much more by example than by words

8.      The other qualities are discipline, regularity, good manners, courage, endurance

9.      One must have a lot of patience with young children

10.      With young children one has to repeat the same

thing several times, explaining it in various ways

11.      Only gradually the lessons enters young children’s mind

15.      Before children begin their games, the group-leaders, the captains, tell them, explain to them exactly what Sri Aurobindo has said with detailed explanations in the two little books The Code of Sportsmanship and The Ideal Child [or What a Child Should Always Remember]

16.      Above all, set them the right example—be yourself what you would like them to be of patience

17.      Not to become unpleasant, impatient

18.      Those who succeed as teachers here are capable of never-failing patience

XIV—Children and Patience

1.      A limitless patience is one of the qualities necessary to be called a true child of the Ashram

2.      Indolent natures of children may also have a concealed quality of great potential for calm and patience

3.      When a child who comes spontaneously to confess a mistake, listen to the child with patience and explain him where his fault lies

4.      Prayer given to the children of Dortoir Boarding

5.      We all want to be the true children of our Divine Mother and for that, sweet Mother, give us patience and courage

XV—Even Cats Show Marvellous Patience to Educate Their Kittens

1.      The trouble that cat takes to educate the kittens with patience is marvellous

2.      The cat would jump from wall to wall with what care and repeat it a hundred times if necessary

3.      The cat is never tired until the little ones had learned what it wanted

4.      The love of the higher animals like the mammals for their children is exactly of the same nature as humans and has the same patience

5.      It is not by beating, but by patience that work can be taught to animals

XVI—Examples of Areas Where Patience Is Needed

1.      Once you have decided to do the Yoga and you are conscious that the goal is worth the trouble of a constant and sustained effort, you may begin

2.      One must have plenty of patience for the work may be undone many times, you will have to do it again until finally it is no longer undone

3.      It is true that if one does yoga in the world and in worldly circumstances, it is more difficult, but it is also more complete

4.      Because, every minute one must face problems

which do not present themselves to someone who has left everything and gone into solitude

5.      In life one meets with all sorts of difficulties, beginning with the incomprehension of those around you with whom you have to deal

6.      One must be ready to face all difficulties and be armed with patience

7.      In yoga one should no longer care for what people think or say; it is an absolutely indispensable starting point

8.      The work of unification around our psychic centre requires much time and so we must arm ourselves with patience and endurance

a.      If we truly want to progress we must reject from us or eliminate in us whatever contradicts the truth of our existence, whatever is opposed to it

b.      All the parts, all the elements of our being has to be organised into a homogeneous whole around our psychic centre

9.      The answer to dark periods returned again and again after bright periods of sadhana is patience in the endeavour

10.      Till the whole being is not unified around the central psychic Presence patience in the endeavour is required

11.      Unifying around psychic Presence is a personal task that each individual must do for himself

12.      The effectivity of the action to unify around psychic

Presence is in measure of the receptivity and the conscious appeal

13.      The small beginnings are of the greatest importance and have to be allowed with great patience to develop

a. Examples of small beginnings

b. The neutral quietness is the first step towards the peace

c. The small current or thrill of inner delight the first trickling can lead to the ocean of Ananda

d. The play of lights or colours is the key of the doors of the inner vision and experience

e. The descents that stiffen the body into a concentrated stillness is the first touch which can lead to the presence of the Divine

14.      Patience will required to bring the quietude for those who are accustomed to a very active movement of their thought and will

15.      The purification and the self-giving take a long time to accomplish and one must have the patience

16.      When one begins to control the thought coming into your mind one must begin with an unshakable patience

a.      This is because the human mind is a public place open on all sides, and in this public place, things come, go, cross from all directions

b.      You will see to what a degree you have to be watchful

c.      Keep an extremely clear vision of the ideas which conform to your aspirations and those which do not

d.      You must police at every minute that public place where roads from all sides meet, so that all passers-by do not rush in

e.      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

f.      When one begins with an unshakable patience then one must say that even if it takes a hundred years, even if it takes several lives, one wants to accomplish and shall accomplish

17.      The possibilities, which can become fine capacities if properly developed, will take a lot of time, effort and patience to change them into realisations

18.      The movements of the lower consciousness requires great will to get out of them and so one has to arm oneself with patience

a.      A great vigilance is required to avoid falling into the movements of the lower consciousness

19.      With training and patience you can acquire a body with which you can get along in life

20.      Imaginations can be got rid of in time, if one faces them with calm resolution, detachment and patience

a.      The first necessity is not to allow yourself to be upset by this difficulty of a restless mind full of imaginations

b.      These imaginations come easily to the human mind, but they can be got rid of in time

c.      It is simply a habit that has taken hold of the mind it can be dissolved and cease to recur

d.      They are not creations of your own mind, they are foreign matter thrown on it from outside

e.      The physical mind which they attack has to learn to see and feel them as something foreign and refuse to accept them

f.      You will receive my help and the Mother’s. Keep yourself inwardly confident and open, all will be done

21.      Rebellious and unmanageable desires and impulses in men are like wild horses which can be controlled with a little effort and patience

a.      To break the rebellious and unmanageable desires need a bridle and the best bridle is the one you put on them yourself, the one called self-control

22.      To train the vital being is the most difficult part to train and requires great patience

a.      The vital being in us is the seat of impulses and desires, of enthusiasm and violence, of dynamic energy and desperate depression, of passions and revolt

b.      The vital can set in motion everything, build up and realise

c.      The vital can also destroy and mar everything

d.      It is a long labour requiring great patience,

and it demands a perfect sincerity

23.      To await for the inner inspiration or moved by the light that comes from above needs patience

a.      For inner inspiration you must will and will with persistence, and never lose patience

b.      If necessary, repeat the same thing a thousand times, knowing that perhaps the thousandth time you will realise the result

24.      It is necessary to have a great patience when one is in physical consciousness and its principal difficulty is externalisation and this covering up of the active experience

25.      Change in the habit of the physical nature and that needs a long patient work of detail

26.      The change of the old habitual movements of the nature cannot be done in a single stroke and patience is necessary because it takes time

a. The inner consciousness has to grow in such a way that finally it occupies the outer being also and renders these things impossible

b. Keep the will and the faith and in quietude and patience let the Mother work all out in you

27.      Patience, patience is required to feel Thy Power and Thy Force in the body because one must be ready

28.      The difficulties in the nature always rise again and again till you overcome them; they must be faced with both strength and patience

a.      All who enter the spiritual path have to face the difficulties and ordeals of the path, those which rise from their own nature and those which come in from outside

b.      You must train yourself to overcome this reaction of depression, calling in the Mother’s force to aid you

29.      The first necessary form of surrender is trust and confidence and patience in difficulty

30.      If trust and patience fail when aspiration is quiescent, that would mean that the sadhak is relying solely on his own effort

31.      The transformation of the external being is the most difficult part of the Yoga and it demands patience

32.      The external being in every one is always, a difficult animal to handle and it has to be dealt with by patience

33.      With Patience explain to the black spot which comes from the ego its mistake that it may disappear

a.      The little black spot which comes from the ego clouds your judgment

b.      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

c.      If you truly want to know, you must draw back a step and look

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

and in the end it will disappear

e.      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

34.      We must meet all adverse circumstances with patience

35.      If you have the patience to wait, the mind can change and realise a certain truth in the higher consciousness

36.      To overcome the satisfactions of ordinary life and completely consecrate yourself to the Divine can be done by much patience

37.      If one wants to consecrate to the Divine then there is no question of personal incapacity, since the Mother’s help and protection is always there

38.      When one wants to make a complete offering to the Mother one must have an obstinate will and a great patience

a.      But once one has taken the resolution to completely offer to the Mother, the divine help will be there to support and to help

b.      This help is felt inwardly in the heart

39.      The Divine Wisdom and Power can liberate the true Person in us and attain to a divine manhood if we yield to its workings with patience

40.      To get into contact with the inner being and change

the outer consciousness from the inner is the work of the sadhana and it is sure to come with patience

41.      Adopt more patient course by which the doors of the inner being will automatically swing open

a.      More patient course is developing the sattwic qualities and building up the inner meditative quietude

b.      It is possible by strenuous meditation to open doors to the inner being and it may lead to conditions of sadhana which may be very turbid, chaotic, beset with unnecessary dangers

c.      It is necessary to keep the sattwic quietude, patience, vigilance

d.      To hurry nothing, to force nothing, not to be led away by any strong lure or call of the intermediate stage

e.      For there are many vehement pulls from the forces of the inner planes which it is not safe to follow

42.      To grow into a divine life the wrappings and disguises of our outer being must be extricated with patience

a.      In the growth into a divine life the spirit must be our first preoccupation

b.      Until we have built up in ourselves an inner life of the spirit, it is obvious that no outer divine living can become possible

43.      Where there is great complexity which takes in many sides and reconcile many conflicting conclusions as

in Upanishads then we must follow it with patience

44.      Instead of suicide face your difficulties with fortitude and patience

a.      Suicide is a weak and unmanly evasion and it is found to be useless

b.      Since the same misery continues after death

c.      One has to come back to earth and face the same difficulties under worse conditions

d.      The Gita has never said that suicide can under any circumstances lead to Nirvana

e.      The death spoken of in Gita is a natural or a Yogic death with the mind concentrated with faith and absorption in the Divine

45.      To recover your true inner vital self you must have steadfast patience, cheerfulness

a.      Then when you are back to your right walk and stature the hostile forces wait a little and strike again

b.      The  whole thing repeats itself with a mechanical regularity

c.      It takes time, steadfast endeavour, long continued aspiration and a calm perseverance to get anywhere in Yoga

d.      Equanimity, steadfast patience, cheerfulness is required to recover your true inner vital self and get rid of this intruder

e.      If you give the hostile forces its rein, it is extremely difficult to get on to anywhere

f.      The hostile forcesmust go, its going is much more urgently required

46.      If you can acquire and keep patience and fortitude the hold hostile forces have will progressively disappear

47.      To become a conscious and perfect instrument cannot be done in a day so not to become anxious or uneasy

a.      You can be a conscious and perfect instrument only when you are no longer acting in obedience to the ignorant push of the lower nature

b.      You can be a perfect instrument when you surrender to the Mother and aware of her higher Force acting within you

c.      One has to act in so far as one has to aspire, offer oneself, assent to the Mother’s working, reject all else, more and more surrender

d.      All else will be done in time so there is no need for anxiety or depression or impatience

48.      The phrase ‘Leaving the result to the Divine’ implies dependence on the Divine Grace and equanimity and patience in the persistent aspiration

49.      Aspire, await with patience for the result

50.      If you want to learn to see and have visions, then it is a very long, very slow discipline and there are very few people who have the necessary patience and endurance to go to the end of the training

51.      For subtle things like seeing or hearing through a

wall or seeing at a distance you must practise for months with patience, with a kind of obstinacy

52.      In occultism you may try for years together and not have the least experience for you need an infinite patience to learn occultism

53.      One must have much patience and a very wide and very complex vision to understand how things happen in Nature

XVII—Other Quotations on Patience

a.      The pragmatic man has no patience to grasp that one has to live and act in the world and yet be above the world

b.      The tamasic man is ready soon to give up his task if it taxes his patience

c.      With patience one arrives always

Part II—Impatience

XVIII—Impatience Comes from

1.      The impatience comes from the vital

2.      If the vital is unpurified, it brings in a rajasic intensity with impatience

3.      Impatience has been created to counteract inertia

4.      The vibration of impatience is of the same quality as

desire

5.      The physical nature of almost everybody lacks in patience when dealing with others

XIX—In Yoga Impatience Is …

1.      Impatience is the sure sign of weakness and imperfection

2.      Impatience is always a mistake

3.      Impatience does not help but hinders

4.      Yogic realisation does not come all at once; it comes after a long preparation of the Adhara which may take a long time

5.      A quiet happy faith and confidence is the best foundation for sadhana

6.      All impatience is a violence against the Master of the being

7.      Impatience may be natural to human beings, but it is not exactly reasonable

8.      The childish impatience cries and denies the ideal because the Golden Mountains cannot be reached in our little day

XX—Difference Between Aspiring Intensity and Impatience

1.      Difference between aspiring intensity and

impatience is very subtle

2.      It is a difference in vibration

3.      This subtle difference makes all the difference

4.      Fiery aspiration is the psychic aspiration, the psychic fire

5.      In aspiration if the vital comes in, then the impatience for result comes in

6.      The physical vital will turn the strong aspiration into over-eagerness and impatience

7.      So first there must be the opening, a purification, a fixed quietude

8.      Aspire intensely, but without impatience

9.      Aspire with a great intensity but without impatience

10.      The aspiration must be intense, calm and strong and not restless and impatient, then alone aspiration can be stable

XXI—When There Is Impatience in Yoga

1.      If one has not the necessary patience, the effort may be abandoned owing to the difficulty of the beginning

2.      The restless element of vital impatience prevents us to wait for the grace in perfect reliance

3.      Too much vital eagerness often blocks the way; it makes a sort of obstructing mass

4.      Too much vital eagerness makes a whirl of

restlessness and disturbance which leaves no quiet space for the Divine to get in

5.      The bhakta is ready to wait for grace in perfect reliance, even if need be all his life

6.      The bhakta knows that grace will come so never varies his love and surrender

7.      Wanting grace, however strongly, is not a passport to getting grace there is something more to it than that

8.      The Divine comes in when the impatience has been definitely renounced and one waits, quietly open

9.      Impatience is when man demands miracles that he may have faith and wishes to be dazzled in order that he may see

10.      This impatience may turn into a great danger and disaster for we call in another distorting Force more satisfying to our impulses and desires and ask it to guide us

11.      We cannot see God because of his workings and, especially, because he works in us through our nature and not by a succession of arbitrary miracles

12.      Because of the impatience of heart and mind it is difficult to practise faith and steadfastness in Yoga

13.      The vital nature of man hungers for the fruit of its labour and if the fruit denied or long delayed, he loses faith in the ideal

14.      The mind judges always by the appearance of things, since that is the first ingrained habit of the

intellectual reason in which he trusts

15.      Those who try to snatch or clutch at realisation try to progress through violence and have no patience

16.      Those who have no patience want to realise at once; and as this usually does not happen all at once, they pull it down from above

17.      This way one has neither the real thing nor the true movement

18.      One can only have an imitation of the true thing because this is not how realisation comes

19.      If the nerves are tired then one loses one’s patience

20.      With losing patience work can no longer be neat and trim, everything becomes an approximation

21.      Then one cannot achieve any kind of perfection

22.      One must not get into the habit of going to bed late for the nerves also get tired

23.      The lack of precaution in any work is a part of the movement of hurry and impatience

24.      If there is lack of precaution then something serious may happen

25.      It is not possible to get peace of mind if you indulge in demand and impatience

26.      To expect and demand realisation soon and get fed up because it does not come and declare Yoga impossible would be a rash and abnormal impatience

27.      A slow development is the best one can hope for in the first years and only when the nature is ready and fully concentrated towards the Divine can the definitive experience come

28.      It is an impatience and restlessness in the vital which makes it feel as if it were no use staying here because things are not moving forward

29.      If one has patience and confidence, the consciousness passes through these periods to new openings and things which seemed to be impossible to effect at that time, get done

30.      The impulse to rush away is always a mistake

31.      Sadhana is a thing which takes time and needs patience

32.      There are often periods of quiescence in which a working is going on behind of which the mind is not aware

33.      The hostiles forces can take hold if there is an expression of dissatisfaction and impatience

34.      Every movement of impatience is an obstacle in one’s progress

35.      Impatience is one of the stone to build a wall to prevent yourself from progressing

36.      Impatience prevents you from advancing

37.      Too much haste is dangerous

38.      Impatience can cause depression

39.      You must strive to realise the Divine in this life itself

40.      But you must not be impatient

41.      Losing patience only prolongs the vital trouble

42.      When the vital is to be changed it always gives trouble of losing patience

43.      One has to sit fixed in the calm of the inner consciousness and keep the vital movements quite on the surface

44.      Losing patience in illness does not hasten the cure

45.      You must keep a peaceful faith that you are going to be cured

46.      People who are grateful and cheerful and ready to go step by step actually march faster and more surely than those who are impatient and in haste and at each step despair or murmur

47.      It is the impatience of the human intellect and will that brought in the impulse of renunciation

48.      This impatience destroyed the synthesis with its spiritual insight and brought in two movements the normal life of interests and desires and the abnormal or supernormal inner life founded on renunciation

49.      The impatience condemns life and discourages life’s growth because it is at present undivine

50.      This idea is ignorance

51.      Only by the light and power of the highest can the lower be perfectly guided, uplifted and accomplished

52.      The lower life can only be divinised by finding the higher law and the spiritual illumination

53.      Do not admit suggestions of impatience but give time for the Mother’s force to act

XXII—The Impatience and the Sadhana

1.      You must get rid of all inner as well as all outer movements of impatience

2.      In transformation one part of the nature changes and one feels as if there had been a complete and permanent change

3.      Then one is disappointed to find a period of lowered consciousness

4.      This is because another part of the consciousness comes up for change and a period of preparation follows

5.      These things alarm, disappoint or perplex the eagerness and impatience of the sadhak

6.      If one takes them quietly and adopts the right attitude, one can make these unenlightened periods also a part of the conscious sadhana

7.      Do not regard the pauses in Yoga with impatience as these pauses are of preparation and assimilation

8.      Besides the Force rises up lifting part of the nature on a higher level

9.      Then the Force comes down to a lower layer to raise the lower layer

10.      This motion of ascent and descent is often extremely trying to the mind because the mind wants the ascent in a straight line

11.      The vital is eager for rapid fulfilment and cannot understand or follow this intricate movement

12.      The transformation of the whole nature is not an easy thing to accomplish

13.      The Force knows better than our mental ignorance or our vital impatience

14.      One should not lose patience if the experience of mental peace does not come back

15.      The same experience never repeats in exactly the same way for everything changes and progresses

16.      But the state of mental peace you have known is nothing compared to the one which you will come to know

17.      Later you will have much deeper and completer experience

18.      You must keep your aspiration intact and your will to conquer all obstacles

19.      To reject all the defects of the lower prakriti without impatience

20.      Free yourself from all exaggerated self-depreciation and the habit of getting depressed by the sense of sin, difficulty or failure

21.      These feelings are an immense obstacle and hamper the progress

22.      They belong to the religious, not to the Yogic mentality

23.      The Yogin should look on all the defects of the nature as movements of the lower prakriti common to all and reject them calmly, firmly and persistently with full

confidence in the Divine Power

24.      There should be no over-eagerness for experiences but such as come should be observed

25.      There should be no impatience if the progress is slow or difficulties many; all should be done in a calm patience

26.      There are two stages in the Yoga, one of preparation and one of the actual intensive sadhana

27.      In the first stage aspiration in the heart with prayer, bhakti, meditation, a will to offer the life to the Divine are the important things

28.      All that flatters the ego or feeds it should be rejected

29.      This period tests the capacity of the sadhak and the sincerity of his aspiration towards the Divine

30.      To rid of the difficulty of the physical nature one has not to become impatient for that only makes it last more

31.      Put entire confidence in the Mother and quietly persist in faith, patience and steady will for the complete change

32.      The difficulty of the physical nature comes inevitably in the course of the development of the sadhana

33.      There is none who does not go through it

34.      What is necessary is not to get troubled or impatient, for that only makes it last more

35.      Put entire confidence in the Mother and quietly persist in faith, patience and steady will for the complete change

36.      The persistence of trouble, the length of time taken for purification and perfection must not be allowed to become a reason for impatience

37.      The trouble comes because there is still something in the nature which responds to the trouble

38.      The recurrence of trouble serves to bring out the presence of the defect

39.      The recurrence of trouble puts the sadhaka upon his guard and bring about a more enlightened and consistent action of the will to get rid of it

40.      To give oneself is the secret of sadhana, not to demand and acquire

41.      The more one gives oneself, the more the power to receive will grow but for that all impatience must go

42.      All suggestions of not getting, not being helped, must be rejected

43.      When you call the true Light and the true Force, call it down quietly without impatience

44.      When the inner being begins to awake, there should be no impatience

45.      To control speech is not to speak in haste or anger or impatience

46.      To control speech is to stand back from the speech impulse and observe it

47.      To control speech is not to say whatever the impulse makes you say but only to speak what one really needs to say or chooses to say

48.      There is a stage in the transformation when the Power is pressing on the outer being

49.      The natural movements of the vital like impatience is frequently breaking out and disturbing the work

50.      Do not be shaken by impatience but remain as separate as possible from these movements and let the Force work

51.      Look to the Mother not with impatience for the result and desire, but with trust and confidence and let her workings bring you quietude and the renewal of the progress

52.      For the physical consciousness to become balanced, filled with the light and force from above, cannot be done in a day, so dismiss impatience

53.      To force the Divine to do what one wants is a culminating act of vital impatience

54.      Instead we must trust the Divine to do what is best according to his own divine will and wisdom

55.      You must not yield to impatience for that cannot possibly help the working but must impede it

56.      Keep yourself open to the Mother without impatience for immediate results

57.      Things rejected by the mind and vital descend into the subconscient or else go out into the environmental

consciousness

58.      Impatience lends force to the hostile forces to push rejected things back from the environmental consciousness

XXIII—Curb the Mind’s Impatience

1.      It is necessary to curb the mind’s impatience

2.      Knowledge is progressive

3.      If the mind tries to leap up to the top at once, it may make a hasty construction which it will have afterwards to undo

4.      The knowledge and experience must come by degrees and step by step

5.      So long as the mind is attached to impatience, it cannot attain to the self-effulgent nature of Truth

XXIV—Anger Is a Violent Impatience

1.      The tendency to get angery is a violent impatience directed against things the mind and vital do not like

2.      All pessimism is an impatience with the ways of God in the world

XXV—Get Rid of Impatience

1.      You must get rid of all inner as well as all outer

movements of anger and impatience

2.      If things go wrong or are done wrongly, you will simply say, ‘The Mother knows’ and go on quietly doing or getting things done as well as you can without friction

XXVI—How the Impatience in Yoga Will Disappear

1.      Impatience and over-eagerness for the result at once are natural to the human vital

2.      It is by firm confidence in the Mother that impatience will disappear

3.      It is by the love, the belief in her as the Divine to whom your life is given that impatience will disappear

4.      Try to get a constant will for that quietude, so that when restlessness arises, your will to be quiet might meet it and dispel the disturbance

5.      This would make the elimination of the restlessness or impatience easier

6.      The Mother’s force works behind the variations of the surface consciousness and it will bring you through them

XXVII—The Time of Impatience Is Gone

1.      In the ordinary state there is unconscious negation where there is a conscious perception of death and suffering

2.      In the other state, death and suffering appear as absolutely unreal

3.      It is this ordinary state that gets impatient

4.      Impatience has been created to counteract inertia

5.      But now impatience is to be done with, that time has gone

6.       If you are one with the Divine Consciousness, then you leave outside you the things of the human nature and you enter into the infinity and eternity of the Divine Nature

7.       Then you escape from this feeling of a great eagerness of hurry with which men are obsessed, because they want to see things done

XXVIII—Other Quotations on Impatience

a.      The psychic yearning brings no reaction of impatience

b.      In true courage there is no impatience and no rashness

c.      Impatience does not help, intensity of aspiration does

____________