Page 17 - All India Magazine Jan-2026

even if it takes very long, you will never get tired. But you
must do it like that with an intensity of will, with persever-
ance and that indispensable cheerfulness which smiles at dif-
ficulties and laughs at mistakes. Then everything will go well.
CWM 4: 253 - 254

Smile of wisdom
One finds in oneself lots of small hidden folds, little
things one had not seen at the beginning; one undertakes a
sort of inner chase, goes hunting into small dark corners and
tells oneself: “What, I was like that! This was there in me, I
am harbouring this little thing!”— sometimes so sordid, so
mean, so nasty. And once it has been discovered, how won-
derful! One puts the light upon it and it disappears and you
no longer have those reactions which made you so sad be-
fore, when you used to say, “Oh! I shall never get there.” For
instance, you take a very simple resolution (apparently very
simple): “I shall never tell a lie again.” And suddenly, without
your knowing why or how, the lie springs up all by itself and
you notice it after you have uttered it: “But this is not cor-
rect — what I have just said; it was something else I meant to
say.” So you search, search.... “How did it happen? How did
I think like that and speak like that? Who spoke in me, who
pushed me?...” You may give yourself quite a satisfactory ex-
planation and say, “It came from outside” or “It was a mo-
ment of unconsciousness”, and not think any longer about
it. And the next time, it begins again. Instead of that, you
search: “What can be the motive of one who tells lies?...”
and you push — you push and all of a sudden you discover in
a little corner something which wants to justify itself, thrust
itself forward or assert its own way of seeing (no matter
what, there are a number of reasons), show itself a little dif-

All India Magazine, January 2026 17