Two powers: Aspiration and Grace

There are two powers that alone can effect in their conjunction the great and difficult quest which is the aim of our endeavour,

• A fixed and unfailing aspiration that calls from below and
• A Supreme Grace from above that answers.

But the supreme Grace will act only in the conditions of the Light and the Truth; it will not act in conditions of Falsehood and Ignorance. For if it were to yield to the demands of Falsehood, it would defeat its own purpose.

These are the conditions of Light and Truth, the sole conditions under which the highest will descend; and it is only the very highest supramental Force descending from above and opening from below that can victoriously handle the physical Nature and annihilate its difficulties . . .

There must be a total and sincere surrender; there must be an exclusive self-opening to the Divine Power; there must be a constant and integral choice of the Truth, a constant and integral rejection of the falsehood of the mental, vital and physical powers and appearances that still rule the earth-Nature.

Surrender must be total and seize all parts of the being.

If a part of the being surrenders, but another part reserves itself, follows its own way or makes its own conditions, then each time that happens, you are yourself pushing Divine Grace away from you.

If behind your devotion and surrender you make a cover for your desires, egoistic demands and vital insistences, if you put these things in the place of true aspiration or mix them with it and try to impose it on the Divine Shakti, then it is idle to invoke the Divine Grace to transform you.

If you open yourself on one side or in one part to the Truth and on another side are constantly opening the gates to hostile forces, it is in vain to expect that the divine Grace will abide with you. You must keep the temple clean if you wish to install there a living Presence.

If each time the Power intervenes and brings back the Truth, you turn your back on it and call in again the falsehood that has been expelled, it is not the divine Grace you must blame for failing you, but the falsity of your own will and the imperfection of your own surrender.

If you call for the Truth and yet something in you chooses what is false, ignorant and undivine or even simply is unwilling to reject it altogether, then always you will be open to attack and Grace will recede from you. Detect first what is false or obscure in you and persistently reject it, then alone can you rightly call for the Divine Power to transform you. Do not imagine that truth and falsehood, light and darkness, surrender and selfishness can be allowed to dwell together in the house consecrated to the Divine. The transformation must be integral, and integral therefore the rejection of all that withstands it.

Reject the false notion that the Divine Power will do and is bound to do everything for you at your demand, even though you do not satisfy the conditions laid down by the Supreme. Make your surrender true and complete, then only will all else be done for you.

Reject too the false and indolent expectation that the Divine will do the surrender for you. The Supreme demands your surrender, but does not impose it: you are free at every moment, till the irrevocable transformation comes, to deny and to reject the Divine or to recall your self-giving. Your surrender must be self-made and free; it must be the surrender of a living being, not of an inert automation or mechanical tool.

An inert passivity is constantly confused with the real surrender, but out of an inert passivity nothing true and powerful can come. It is the inert passivity of the physical nature that leaves it at the mercy of every obscure or undivine influence.

A glad and strong and helpful submission is demanded to the working of the Divine force, the obedience of the illumined disciple of the Truth, of the inner warrior who fights against obscurity and falsehood, of the faithful servant of the Divine.

This is the right attitude and only those who can keep it, preserve a faith unshaken by disappointments and difficulties and shall pass through life’s ordeals, onwards to the supreme victory and the greatest transmutation.

Aspiration, Rejection, Surrender

In all that is done in the universe, the Divine through his Shakti is behind all action but he is veiled by his Yoga Maya and works through the ego of the Jiva in the lower nature.

In Yoga also it is the Divine who is the sadhaka and the sadhana; it is his Shakti with her light, power, knowledge, consciousness, Ananda, acting upon the Adhara and, when it is opened to her, pouring into it with these divine forces that makes the sadhana possible. But so long as the lower nature is active the effort of the sadhaka becomes necessary.

The personal effort required is a triple labour of aspiration, rejection and surrender.

1. An aspiration vigilant, constant, unceasing - the mind’s will, the heart’s seeking, the assent of the vital being, the will to open and make plastic the physical consciousness and nature;
2. Rejection of the movements of lower nature - rejection of the mind’s ideas, opinions, preferences, habits, constructions, so that true knowledge may find free room in a silent mind. Rejection of the vital nature’s desires, demands, cravings, sensations, passions, selfishness, pride, arrogance, lust, greed, jealousy, envy, hostility towards Truth, so that true power and joy may pour from above into a calm, large, strong and consecrated vital being. Rejection of the physical nature’s doubt, disbelief, obscurity, obstinacy, pettiness, laziness, unwillingness to change, so that the true stability of Light, Power, Ananda may establish itself in a body which is growing towards the Divine.
3. Surrender of oneself and all one is and has and surrender on every plane of consciousness to the Divine Shakti.

In proportion as the surrender and self-consecration progress, the sadhaka becomes conscious of the Divine Shakti doing the sadhana, pouring into it more and more of oneself, finding in it the freedom and perfection of Divine Nature.

The more this conscious process replaces his own effort, the more rapid and true becomes his progress.

But it cannot completely replace the necessity of personal effort until the surrender and consecration are pure and complete from top to bottom. Note that a tamasic surrender, refusing to fulfil the divine conditions, calling on God to do everything and to save one from all the trouble and struggle is a deception and does not lead to freedom and perfection.