Page 34 - All India Magazine Apr-2024

them which, more often than not, are not there. Misunderstand-
ing, misjudgment which could have been avoided are the result;
things of small consequence assume larger proportions. I have
seen that more than half of the untoward happenings of this kind
in life are due to this cause. But in ordinary life personal feeling
and sensitiveness are a constant part of human nature and may
be needed there for self-defence, although, I think, even there, a
strong, large and equal attitude towards men and things would be
a much better line of defence. But for a sadhak, to surmount them
and live rather in the calm strength of the spirit is an essential part
of his progress.
*
Equality does not mean a fresh ignorance or blindness; it does not
call for and need not initiate a greyness of vision and a blotting
out of all hues. Difference is there, variation of expression is there
and this variation we shall appreciate, — far more justly than we
could when the eye was clouded by a partial and erring love and
hate, admiration and scorn, sympathy and antipathy, attraction
and repulsion. But behind the variation we shall always see the
Complete and Immutable who dwells within it and we shall feel,
know or at least, if it is hidden from us, trust in the wise purpose
and divine necessity of the particular manifestation, whether it
appear to our human standards harmonious and perfect or crude
and unfinished or even false and evil.
CWSA 29: 130-31, 23: 224-25
Sri Aurobindo

Flower: Balance
(Spiritual significance of the flower given
by the Mother)
Botanical name: Begonia

44 34 All India Magazine, April 2024