In one of his letters, Sri Aurobindo says that the mistakes of Thought, Speech, or Action should be kept away and considered something superficial that the Power and Light will deal with and remove. But in ‘The Mother’ book, he specifically says to reject the lower movements. Then, what is the difference between the movement of Aspiration and Rejection? ππ€π·β¨
It is always best to have the exact quote from Sri Aurobindo. He is very precise with words. Secondly, he has covered each subject from different angles of vision which, when read in totality, make a complete whole.
Let’s take what he writes in the first chapter of The Mother. It is a letter written to a disciple. Here he is giving us a complete overview of the working of the Divine Grace in response to the human aspiration. What he emphasises is that if we want the transformation, then there should be no half measures. The transformation is indeed done by the Grace, but for its full action, we have to give a complete consent through a conscious aspiration and surrender in all the parts. If different parts go in different directions, then naturally it will create difficulties and delay.
Now aspiration is like the fire that makes the pot strong and ready to receive the flow of higher things. Rejection is needed to remove the impurities that get mixed up with the clay and leave the pot weak in places. The Mother, however, made it clear that rejection is impossible for unaided human effort. She advised offering the movements sincerely to The Grace and the Light, which then deals with them in its own way, removing what needs to be removed, transforming what can be transformed. This is what you find in Chapter 3, where the method shown is a growth in faith, sincerity and surrender. The following chapters speak about the right attitude in work and with regard to money. The last chapter opens the royal road of progressive psychic opening to the Mother.
What is to be rejected, however, are movements that contradict and resist the Divine Working in us, creating obstacles in the sadhana by raising lust, anger, fear, excessive attachment, pride, vanity, egoism. The first letter you quote speaks of ‘mistakes of thought, speech, or action’ which implies erroneous movements, for example, inability to think rightly or unwittingly doing an erroneous action. A mistake is something done unintentionally. That is the difference. He is asking us not to have scruples over it, as some people who become puritans and sometimes take to extreme measures, such as not speaking for fear of making mistakes, not eating well for fear of developing greed, not engaging in action, as they may do things wrongly. Sri Aurobindo is asking us not to worry about these things as they drop off with the growth of consciousness and light.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
