Study Notes
PARAGRAPH 9
In our ordinary life this truth is hidden from us or only dimly glimpsed at times or imperfectly held and conceived. But if we learn to live within, we infallibly awaken to this presence within us which is our more real self, a presence profound, calm, joyous and puissant of which the world is not the master—a presence which, if it is not the Lord Himself, is the radiation of the Lord within. We are aware of it within supporting and helping the apparent and superficial self and smiling at its pleasures and pains as at the error and passion of a little child.
EXPLANATION
In our day-to-day life we are not aware of our true self which is hidden deep within. We get only a glimpse of it at times. Whatever we hold and conceive of it, is imperfect. We can awaken to this presence within us without fail if we learn to live within.
The presence within is our more real self. It is profound (very deep), calm, joyous and having a great power. This presence is the radiation of the Lord within, though not it is the Lord Himself. The world is not its master. Rather it is the master of itself.
We are aware of it within, supporting and helping the apparent superficial self. It patiently watches and smiles at the pleasures and pains of our superficial self like parents watch the errors and enthusiasm of the child with indulgence.
And if we can go back into ourselves and identify ourselves, not with our superficial experience, but with that radiant penumbra of the Divine, we can live in that attitude towards the contacts of the world and, standing back in our entire consciousness from the pleasures and pains of the body, vital being and mind, possess them as experiences whose nature being superficial does not touch or impose itself on our core and real being.
EXPLANATION
Normally we identify ourselves with our superficial experience of body, mind and life. We experience joy and sorrow as felt by our surface self. Instead, if we go within ourselves and immerse in the Divine Light that radiates in our deepest part of our being, we can remain unaffected by our outer contacts with the world.
We can stand back in our entire consciousness from the pain and pleasure of our body; of our vital being; of our mind. We can handle them as mere experiences without affecting our core and real being.
In the entirely expressive Sanskrit terms, there is an anandamaya behind the manomaya, a vast Bliss-Self behind the limited mental self, and the latter is only a shadowy image and disturbed reflection of the former. The truth of ourselves lies within and not on the surface.
EXPLANATION
There is a vast Bliss-Self, the anandamaya behind our mental self, the manomaya. Our mental self is only a shadowy image and distributed reflection of our Bliss-Self. We live only on our surface self which we call it ourselves. But the fact is, the truth of ourselves lies within.
PARAGRAPH 10
Again this triple vibration of pleasure, pain, indifference, being superficial, being an arrangement and result of our imperfect evolution, can have in it no absoluteness, no necessity. There is no real obligation on us to return to a particular contact a particular response of pleasure, pain or neutral reaction, there is only an obligation of habit. We feel pleasure or pain in a particular contact because that is the habit our nature has formed, because that is the constant relation the recipient has established with the contact. It is within our competence to return quite the opposite response, pleasure where we used to have pain, pain where we used to have pleasure.
EXPLANATION
Why do we react to external events with the triple vibration of pleasure, pain and indifference? This is our superficial response. It is an arrangement and result of our imperfect evolution. These responses have no absoluteness, no finality. It is not necessary that we should respond with pain or pleasure to particular stimulus. Our reactions are created by mere habit.
Our nature has formed certain habits by which we respond to a particular contact with pleasure, to some other with pain and to some other without any reaction. It is because that is the constant relation the recipient (we) has established with the contact. It is quite within our capacity to return an opposite response of pain where there used to be pleasure and pleasure where there used to be pain.
It is equally within our competence to accustom the superficial being to return instead of the mechanical reactions of pleasure, pain and indifference that free reply of inalienable delight which is the constant experience of the true and vast Bliss-Self within us. And this is a greater conquest, a still deeper and more complete self-possession than a glad and detached reception in the depths of the habitual reactions on the surface. For it is no longer a mere acceptance without subjection, a free acquiescence in imperfect values of experience, but enables us to convert imperfect into perfect, false into true values, —the constant but veritable delight of the Spirit in things taking the place of the dualities experienced by the mental being.
EXPLANATION
Is it necessary that we should respond to contacts only with the three modes of pleasure, pain and neutrality? Sri Aurobindo says it is not so. We have within us the true Bliss-Self. The constant experience of this true self is its inseparable delight. Therefore, it is within our capacity to respond to our contacts (whether they are pleasant or unpleasant) with this delight that is within us.
This is the greater victory for us over our own selves. We are in a more complete and deeper possession of ourselves. This is a better reaction than the glad and detached acceptance of our habitual surface reactions into our selves.
What happens when we respond with this delight to our contacts?
– We no longer passively accept all the experiences as we receive them; but subject them to a process of evaluation.
– We do not accept their imperfect values as they are; but we convert the imperfect into perfect, false into true.
– The imperfect experiences of the duality of our mind are replaced by the real delight of the Spirit in things.
What Sri Aurobindo conveys in this paragraph is that in addition to not reacting to pain and pleasure, each one of us has the capacity to transform pain and pleasure to Divine Ananda.
PARAGRAPH 11
In the things of the mind this pure habitual relativity of the reactions of pleasure and pain is not difficult to perceive. The nervous being in us, indeed, is accustomed to a certain fixedness, a false impression of absoluteness in these things. To it victory, success, honour, good fortune of all kinds are pleasant things in themselves, absolutely, and must produce joy as sugar must taste sweet; defeat, failure, disappointment, disgrace, evil fortune of all kinds are unpleasant things in themselves, absolutely, and must produce grief as wormwood must taste bitter. To vary these responses is to it a departure from fact, abnormal and morbid; for the nervous being is a thing enslaved to habit and in itself the means devised by Nature for fixing constancy of reaction, sameness of experience, the settled scheme of man’s relations to life.
EXPLANATION
Sri Aurobindo says man with his mind has the capacity to understand the relativity (meaning, having no value in itself, but purely dependent on circumstance) of reactions of pleasure and pain that are purely caused by habit. The pleasures and pain are always short lived. That which causes pleasure or pain need not produce the same effect. Similarly, that which causes pleasure and pain today may not do so in some other time.
Whereas we have the nervous being (emotional being) in us. Its reactions are not bound by reason. It has a sense of fixedness or a false sense of absoluteness (meaning, having value in itself, not dependent on anything) about the pleasure and pain. It values success, victory and good fortune of all kinds as pleasant in themselves and that they must always produce joy as sugar always tastes sweet. In the same way it takes defeat, failure, disappointment as unpleasant events in themselves and they must always produce grief as wormwood (a bitter herb) must taste bitter.
This is its normal way of reaction to positive and negative events. To react in any other way is considered abnormal and sick. Because the nervous being is a slave of habit. Nervous being is the means by which the Nature has fixed the constancy of reaction, sameness of experience and a settled pattern of man’s relations to life.
The mental being on the other hand is free, for it is the means she has devised for flexibility and variation, for change and progress; it is subject only so long as it chooses to remain subject, to dwell in one mental habit rather than in another or so long as it allows itself to be dominated by its nervous instrument. It is not bound to be grieved by defeat, disgrace, loss: it can meet these things and all things with a perfect indifference; it can even meet them with a perfect gladness. Therefore man finds that the more he refuses to be dominated by his nerves and body, the more he draws back from implication of himself in his physical and vital parts, the greater is his freedom. He becomes the master of his own responses to the world’s contacts, no longer the slave of external touches.
EXPLANATION
The mental being in us is different from our nervous being (emotional self or vital being). Nature has created the mental being in such a way that it is flexible and is capable of variation for change and progress. It can subject itself to control only so long as it chooses to be so. It can be, only by choice to be in a particular mental habit rather than being in some other habit. Or it can choose to be in a habit under the influence of the emotional self only when it wants to be so.
Our mental being is not bound to be affected by defeat, disgrace and loss. It can have a neutral reaction to all these events. Or it can even face them with perfect gladness.
Sri Aurobindo says, the more a person refuses to be dominated by his body and vital (emotional) parts the greater is his freedom. He gets mastery over his responses to world contacts. He is no more a slave to the touches of the external events.