Page 35 - All India Magazine Nov-2024

There are two things we must not confuse: certain necessities
(which are purely necessities if one wants to succeed in complete-
ly controlling physical matter), and then moral notions. These are
two very different things. One may, for instance, refrain from poi-
soning one’s body or besotting one’s brains or annulling one’s will
because one wants to become master of one’s physical conscious-
ness and capable of transforming one’s body. But if one does
these things solely because one thinks one will gain moral merit
by doing so, that will lead you nowhere, to nothing at all. Because
it is not meant for that. One does it for purely practical reasons:
for the same reason, for instance, that you are not in the habit of
taking poison, for you know it will poison you. And then, there are
some very slow poisons taken by people (they think, with impuni-
ty, because the effect is so slow that they cannot discern it easily),
but if one wants to succeed in becoming entirely master of one’s
physical activities and capable of putting the light into the reflexes
of one’s body, then one must abstain from these things — but not
for moral reasons: for altogether practical reasons, from the point
of view of the realisation of the yoga. One must not do this with
the idea of gaining merit, or the idea that because you will gain
merit God will be very pleased and come and manifest within you!
It is not at all that, not at all! Perhaps even, He feels closer to him
who has made mistakes, who is conscious of his faults and has
the sense of his weakness, and aspires sincerely to come out of
it all — He feels perhaps closer to him than to one who has never
made a mistake and is satisfied with his external superiority over
other human beings. In any case, that does not make a great dif-
ference. What does make a lot of difference is the sincerity, the
spontaneity, the intensity of the aspiration — the need, that need
which seizes you and which is so powerful that nothing else in the
world counts.
CWM 5: 348-349 The Mother

All India Magazine, November 2024 35