This is
in a way the most important question of all. We must realise that
each one of us can and must play a role in this effort.
No doubt
the physical effort which many of us have put in to mitigate the
suffering is important. Even more important is how we can bring
about the necessary psychological changes for the future.
We are presenting
four talks of the Mother which we feel can be a great help. These
are on the following topics:
1. The power
of Right Attitude.
2. The power of Thought.
3. The power of Trust and Faith.
4. The power of Collective Prayer.
Let us all,
individually and collectively make this endeavour, unite our aspirations,
prayers and efforts in this direction, so that it becomes a powerful
force.
The Power
of Right Attitude
"If, in the presence
of circumstances that are about to take place, you can take the
highest attitude possible - that is, if you put your consciousness
in contact with the highest consciousness within reach, you can
be absolutely sure that in that case it is the best that can happen
to you. But as soon as you fall from this consciousness into a
lower state, then it is evidently not the best that can happen,
for the simple reason that you are not in your very best consciousness.
I even go so far as to affirm that in the zone of immediate influence
of each one, the right attitude not only has the power to turn
every circumstance to advantage but can change the very circumstance
itself. For instance, when a man comes to kill you, if you remain
in the ordinary consciousness and get frightened out of your wits,
he will most probably succeed in doing what he came for; if you
rise a little higher and though full of fear call for the divine
help, he may just miss you, doing you a slight injury; if, however,
you have the right attitude and the full consciousness of the
divine presence everywhere around you, he will not be able to
lift even a finger against you.
This truth is just
the key to the whole problem of transformation. Always keep in
touch with the divine presence, try to bring it down - and the
very best will always take place. Of course the world will not
change at once, but it will go forward as rapidly as it possibly
can. Do not forget that this is so only if you keep on the straight
road of Yoga, and not if you deviate and lose your way and wander
about capriciously or helplessly as though in a virgin forest.
If each of you did
your utmost, then there would be the right collaboration and the
result would be so much the quicker. I have had innumerable examples
of the power of right attitude. I have seen crowds saved from
catastrophes by one single person keeping the right attitude.
But it must be an attitude that does not remain somewhere very
high and leaves the body to its usual reactions. If you remain
high up like that, saying, "Let God's will be done",
you may get killed all the same. For your body may be quite undivine,
shivering with fear: the thing is to hold the true consciousness
in the body itself and not have the least fear and be full of
the divine peace. Then indeed there is no danger. Not only can
attacks of men be warded off, but beasts also and even the elements
can be affected."
- The Mother
The Power of Thought
"I have already
told you several times that if one thinks clearly and powerfully,
one makes a mental formation, and that every mental formation
is an entity independent of its fashioner, having its own life
and tending to realise itself in the mental world - I don't mean
that you see your formation with your physical eyes, but it exists
in the mental world, it has its own particular independent existence.
If you have made a formation with a definite aim, its whole life
will tend to the realisation of this aim. Therefore, if you want
to help someone at a distance, you have only to formulate very
clearly, very precisely and strongly the kind of help you want
to give and the result you wish to obtain. That will have its
effect. I cannot say that it will be all-powerful, for the mental
world is full of innumerable formations of this kind and naturally
they clash and contradict one another; hence the strongest and
the most persistent will have the best of it.
Now, what is it that
gives strength and persistence to mental formations? - It is emotion
and will. If you know how to add to your mental formation an emotion,
affection, tenderness, love, and an intensity of will, a dynamism,
it will have a much greater chance of success. That is the first
method. It is within the scope of all those who know how to think,
and even more of those who know how to love. But as I said, the
power is limited and there is great competition in that world.
Therefore, even if
one has no knowledge at all but has trust in the divine Grace,
if one has the faith that there is something in the world like
the divine Grace, and that this something can answer a prayer,
an aspiration, an invocation, then, after making one's mental
formation, if one offers it to the Grace and puts one's trust
in it, asks it to intervene and has the faith that it will intervene,
then indeed one has a chance of success."
*
"When you have
a thought, a well-made mental formation which goes out of you,
it becomes an independent entity and continues on its way and
it does that for which it was made. It continues to act independently
of you. That is why you must be on your guard. If you have made
such a formation and it has gone out, it has gone out to do its
work; and after a time you find out that it was perhaps not a
very happy thing to have a thought like that, that this formation
was not very beneficial; now that it has gone out, it is very
difficult for you to get hold of it again…
Note that this power
of formation has a great advantage, if one knows how to use it.
You can make good formations and if you make them properly, they
will act in the same way as the others. You can do a lot of good
to people just by sitting quietly in your room, perhaps even more
good than by undergoing a lot of trouble externally. If you know
how to think correctly, with force and intelligence and kindness,
if you love someone and wish him well very sincerely, deeply,
with all your heart, that does him much good, much more certainly
than you think."
- The Mother
The Power
of Trust and Faith
"The most important
condition [for the descent of faith] is an almost childlike trust,
the candid trust of a child who is sure that it will come, who
doesn't even ask himself about it; when he needs something he
is sure that it is going to come. Well, it is this, this kind
of trust - this indeed is the most important condition.
To aspire is indispensable.
Bust some people aspire with such a conflict inside them between
faith and absence of faith, trust and distrust, between the optimism
which is sure of victory and a pessimism which asks itself when
the catastrophes will come. Now if this is in the being, you may
aspire but you don't get anything. And you say, "I aspired
but didn't get anything." It is because you demolish your
aspiration all the time by your lack of confidence. But if you
truly have trust… Children when left to themselves and not
deformed by older people have such a great trust that all will
be well! For example, when they have a small accident, they never
think that this is going to be something serious: they are spontaneously
convinced that it will soon be over, and this helps so powerfully
in putting an end to it.
Well, when one aspires
for the Force, when one asks the Divine for help, if one asks
with the unshakable certitude that it will come, that it is impossible
that it won't, then it is sure to come. It is this kind…
yes, this is truly an inner opening, this trustfulness. And some
people are constantly in this state. When there is something to
be received, they are always there to receive it. there are others,
when there is something to have, a force descends, they are always
absent, they are always closed at that moment; while those who
have this childlike trust are always there at the right time.
And it is strange,
isn't it, outwardly there is no difference. They may have exactly
the same goodwill, the same aspiration, the same wish to do good,
but those who have this smiling confidence within them, do not
question, do not ask themselves whether they will have it or not
have it, whether the Divine will answer or not - the question
does not arise, it is something understood… "What I
need will be given to me; if I pray I shall have an answer; if
I am in a difficulty and ask for help, the help will come - and
not only will it come but it will manage everything." If
the trust is there, spontaneous, candid, unquestioning, it works
better than anything else, and the results are marvellous. It
is with the contradictions and doubts of the mind that one spoils
everything, with this kind of notion which comes when one is in
difficulties: "Oh, it is impossible! I shall never manage
it. and if it is going to be aggravated, if this condition I am
in, which I don't want, is going to grow still worse, if I continue
to slide down farther and farther, if, if, if, if…"
like that, and one builds a wall between oneself and the force
one wants to receive. The psychic being has this trust, has it
wonderfully, without a shadow, without an argument, without a
contradiction. And when it is like that, there is not a prayer
which does not get an answer, no aspiration which is not realised.
*
"Faith - that
always what is for the best happens. We may for the moment not
consider it as the best because we are ignorant and also blind,
because we do not see the consequences of things and what will
happen later. But we must keep the faith that if it is like that,
if we rely on the Divine, if we give Him the full charge of ourselves,
if we let Him decide everything for us, well, we must know that
it is always what is best for us which happens. This is an absolute
fact. To the extent to which you surrender, the best happens to
you. This may not be in conformity with what you would like, your
preference or desire, because these things are blind: it is the
best from the spiritual point of view, the best for your progress,
your development, your spiritual growth, your true life. It is
always that. And you must keep this faith, because faith is the
expression of a trust in the Divine and the full self-giving you
make to the Divine. And when you make it, it is something absolutely
marvellous. That's a fact, these are not just words, you understand,
it is a fact. When you look back, all kinds of things which you
did not understand when they happened to you, you realise as just
the thing which was necessary in order to compel you to make the
needed progress. Always, without exception. It is our blindness
which prevents us from seeing it.
- The Mother
The Power
of Collective Prayer
"There are different
kinds of collective prayer, just as there are different kinds
of collectivities. There is the anonymous mass, the crowd, formed
by chance circumstances, without any inner coordination, impelled
by the force of circumstance, as for instance when a king or a
person who attracts public attention is in a critical situation,
either ill or the victim of an accident, and the people gather
to obtain news and also to express their feelings; and through
chance circumstances people have collected there, that is, there
is no inner link except that of the same emotion or interest.
There have been cases of crowds spontaneously beginning to pray
to ask for the recovery of someone in whom they were specially
interested. Of course, these very crowds can gather for a completely
different purpose, out of hatred, and their cries are also a sort
or prayer, a prayer to the adverse and destructive forces.
Those movements are
spontaneous, not organised, unexpected.
There is also the collectivity
formed by individuals who have gathered together around an ideal
or a teaching or an action they want to carry out, and who have
an organising link between them, the link of the same purpose,
the same will and the same faith. These can gather in a methodical
manner to practise common prayer and meditation, and if their
aim is high, their organisation good, their ideal powerful, through
their prayers or meditations these groups can have a considerable
effect on world events or on their own inner development and collective
progress. These groups are necessarily far superior to others,
but they don't have the blind strength of the mobs, the collective
action of the crowd. They replace this vehemence, this intensity
by the strength of a deliberate and conscious organisation…
There is an ideal organisation
which, if fully realised, could create a kind of very powerful
unity, composed of elements all having the same aim and the same
will and with enough inner development to be able to give a very
coherent body to this inner oneness of purpose, motive, aspiration
and action.
At all times centres
of initiation have tried this, more or less successfully, and
this is always mentioned in all occult traditions as an extremely
powerful means of action.
If the collective unit
could attain the same cohesion as the individual unit, it would
multiply the strength and action of the individual.
Usually, if several
individuals are brought together, the collective quality of the
group is much lower than the individual value of each person taken
separately, but with a sufficiently conscious and coordinated
organisation, it would be possible, on the contrary, to multiply
the power of individual action."
- The Mother
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