Page 32 - All India Magazine Apr-2024

Generosity

“Nobleness and generosity are the soul’s ethereal firmament;
without them, one looks at an insect in a dungeon.”
Sri Aurobindo , (Thoughts and Aphorisms)

The Mother explains: Nobleness is to refuse all personal calculation.
Generosity is to find one’s own satisfaction in the satisfaction of
others.
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Q: Sri Aurobindo says here about Mahalakshmi: “All that
is poor... repels her advent”?

Yes, poor, without generosity, without ardour, without amplitude,
without inner richness; all that is dry, cold, coiled up, prevents the
coming of Mahalakshmi. It is not a question of big money, you
know! An extremely rich man may be terribly poor from Mahalak-
shmi’s point of view. And a very poor man may be very rich if his
heart is generous....
A poor man is a man having no qualities, no force, no strength,
no generosity. He is also a miserable, unhappy man. Moreover, one
is unhappy only when one is not generous — if one has a generous
nature which gives of itself without reckoning, one is never un-
happy. It is those who are coiled up on themselves and who always
want to draw things towards themselves, who see things and the
world only through themselves — it is these who are unhappy.
But when one gives oneself generously, without reckoning, one is
never unhappy, never. It is he who wants to take who is unhappy;
he who gives himself is never so.

*
I want to speak of moral generosity. To feel happy, for example,
when a comrade is successful. An act of courage, of unselfishness,
a fine sacrifice have a beauty in them which gives you joy. It may be

32 All India Magazine, April 2024