AT THE FEET OF THE MOTHER
Ask Alok da

Dear Sir, please explain the following: “If the mind still needs the more familiar mental conception, it can be kept so long as it is needed; only do not let the soul be bound by it and do not let it limit the inflow of other relations with the Divine and larger forms of experience.”: Sri Aurobindo: Letters on Yoga. Q1: How to ensure that the mental conceptions do not bound and limit the soul? 🧠✨🕊️🙏

One must always remember, in fact, start with this state of humility that the mind does not understand spiritual things. If it is there and, along with it, the aspiration for progress, then the aspiration itself will carry us forward beyond the conceptions useful though they are/were at a certain stage. Say, at one stage we limit the Divine to a kind of relation, of fear and adoration. It may be surpassed and change into a state of intimate friendship. Similarly, we may start by limiting the Divine to certain activities such as worship and to certain places but it enlarges and we find Him in everything and everywhere.

Q2: How to make the mind independent from conceptions?

It is by enlarging of the idea from limited to wider conception through a progressive widening that one arrives beyond conceptions. Some try it by simply dropping all conceptions, as the Zen Teachers, for example. But by doing this abrupt dropping off of conceptions, the mind often enters a state of confusion rather than enlightenment.

Q3: Please explain this quote from the Mother :

“Get out of your mind to have the true intelligence”

The mind’s way is to compare and contrast. It analyses and differentiates, then tries to sum up and add up. But by doing so, it misses the whole picture, the total truth. For this wisdom, one must grow in inner quietude and wait for the true intuition to dawn. It is in the light of a growing true intuition that one can see the whole picture. 

Affectionately,

Alok Da 

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