Page 10 - All India Magazine Jul-2024

Simplicity and Complexity

Sri Aurobindo wants us to be simple
A joyous spontaneity.
What's terrible is this organising mind. It's terrible! It has us
so convinced that we can't do without it that it's very difficult to
resist. Indeed, it has convinced all humanity. The whole so-called
elite of humanity has been convinced that nothing worthwhile can
be achieved without this mental organising power.
But Sri Aurobindo wants us to have the same simple joy as a
blossoming rose: Be simple, be simple, be simple. And when I hear it or
see it, it's like a rivulet of golden light, like a fragrant garden — all,
all, all is open. Be simple.
So you see, mon petit...
These last two or three days I have been constantly seeing this
for you. Then this morning it came for me, because the accumu-
lation of work has become so tremendous that I would need ten
times more time than I have merely to bring things up to date. So
there I was, feeling a bit cornered; there was even a force wanting
me to stop in the midst of my walk and relax, and I was resisting it
with all my will — until I realised I was doing something foolish. It
was the same thing, he said the same thing for me. I relaxed — and
immediately everything was fine.
Essentially, we live with too much tension, don't we?
There you have it, mon petit, my message for the week.
What to do about it? Oh, that will come. But it's true, we are
always too tense — always. And I know that as long as we are con-
trolled by that admirable mind, we feel that to relax means to fall
into tamas and unconsciousness. All these old notions remain, pro-
longing themselves; and there's something like the residue of one
of those marvelous censors, telling you: 'Be careful, tamas, tamas!
Be careful, you are dozing off — very bad, very bad.' And it's idiotic,
because tamas is neither joyous nor luminous, while this is an im-

10 All India Magazine , July 2024