1
In every human difficulty there are two ways open to
us. The common way is familiar enough: it consists in reacting egoistically and
emotionally with self-centered complaint, irritability, fear, anger, despair,
and so on. The uncommon way is taken by a spiritually minded few: it consists in
making something good out of something bad, in reacting selflessly, calmly,
constructively, and hopefully. This is the way of practical philosophy, this
attempt to transform what outwardly seems so harmful into what inwardly at least
must be markedly beneficient. It is a magical work. But it can only be done by
deep thought, self-denial, and love. If the difficulty is regarded as both a
chance to show what we can do to develop latent resources as well as a test of
what we have already developed, it can be made to help us. Even if we do not
succeed in changing an unfavourable environment for the better, such an approach
would to some extent change ourselves for the better. We must accept, with all
its tremendous implications for our past, present, and future, that we are
ultimately responsible for the conditions which stamp our life. Such acceptance
may help to shatter our egoism and that, even though it is painful, will be all
to the good. Out of its challenge can come the most blessed change in ourselves.
(11-4.61)
2
The lower nature is incurably hostile to the higher
one. It prefers its fleeting joys with their attendant miseries, its ugly sins
with their painful consequences, because this spells life to it. (11-1.13)
3
Whoever seeks to tread a path such as the one shown
here will sooner or later find that these forces set themselves in opposition to
his interior journey. His way will be blocked by external circumstances that
entangle him in hopeless struggles or heart-breaking oppressions and
enslavements, or by psychical attacks which seek to sweep him off his spiritual
feet and destroy his higher aspirations. Persons in his immediate environment
may be moved by these invisible forces to work against him, causing uprisings of
hatred and misunderstanding; one-time friends may turn into treacherous enemies
more virulent than the poison of a cobra. Public critics will appear and
endeavour to nullify whatever good he is doing for humanity, or to prevent its
continuance. The single aim and object of all these attempts will be to prevent
his alignment with the Overself, to render mental quiet impossible, or to keep
his heart and mind crushed down to earth and earthly things. He must needs
suffer these things. Their power, scope, and duration may be diminished,
however. (11-2.57)
4
Evil arises only when an entity goes astray into the
delusions of separateness and materialism, and thence into conflict with other
entities. There is no ultimate and eternal principle of evil, but there are
forces of evil, unseen entities who have gone so far astray and are so powerful
in themselves that they work against goodness, truth, and justice. But by their
very nature such entities are doomed to eventual destruction, and even their
work of opposition is utilized for good in the end and becomes the resistance
against which evolution tests its own achievements, the grindstone against which
it sharpens man's intelligence, the mirror in which it shows him his flaws.
(11-1.12)
5
Pessimism is practical defeatism and psychological
suicide. It is the child of despair and the parent of dissolution. (11-5.87)
6
In a negative situation, where negative criticisms
and negative emotions are rampant, other persons may try to involve him in it,
or at least get him to support their attitude and endorse their criticism. But a
feeling may come over him preventing him from doing so. If so, he should obey
and remain silent. With time the rightness of this course will be confirmed.
(11-4.112)
7
Because of what he is and what he seeks to do, the
quester has special trials, special experiences and temptations, apart from the
ordinary ones which accompany all human activities. (11-2.47)
8
Elaborate traps are set at intervals along his road,
made up of a combination of his own weaknesses with persons or events related to
them. He must be wary of relapsing into complacency, must be prepared for tests
and temptations in a variety of forms. (11-2.48)
9
The risk is greater because a human emissary of the
adverse element in Nature will automatically appear at critical moments and
consciously or unconsciously seek hypnotically or passively to lead him astray
as he or she has gone astray. Our own world-wide experience, embracing the
written reports and spoken confidences of thousands of individual cases of
mystical, yogic, and occult seekers--both Oriental and Occidental--has gravely
taught the need of this warning. (11-2.56)
10
Whenever a strong impulse becomes uppermost and
inclines him toward some deed or speech of a negative kind, he had better
scrutinize its source or nature as quickly as he can. (11-4.63)
11
What lies at the root of all these errors in
conduct and defects in character? It is the failure to understand that he is
more than his body. It is, in one word, materialism. (11-2.18)
12
The things which hamper the student's progress are
varied, and although they may bring despondency and discouragement, impatience
and rebellion, they need not and should not be permitted to bring the loss of
all hope. Difficulties there must be, but they need not make us cowards. The
times of swift progress are generally followed by times of slow moving; success
alternates with failure as day with night. He must go on with the faith and
trust that obstacles are not for all time, that fluctuations on the path are
inevitable, and that his own inner divine possibilities are the best guarantee
of ultimate attainment. The trials of the path, as indeed the trials of life
itself, are inescapable. He should endure the tribulations with the inner
conviction that a brighter world awaits him; hope and faith will lead him to it.
(11-2.69)
13
Why does God allow the evil and suffering when the
same result of spiritual advantage could be got in other ways? There are some
questions to which there are no answers because God alone can answer them, and
this is one. We can however find what human intuition, human
mystical revelation, has to say about these things and accept such contributions
at their own value.
14
The dark and destructive forces show themselves in
Nature and life. To leave them out, unaccounted for and ignored, is to leave a
weak place in oneself.
15
These sinister figures seek, and often get, key
positions in politics, organized groups, etc., and from there manipulate the
mass and use them as blind unwitting tools. (11-5.12)
16
What may be true on the ultimate level--the
non-existence of evil, the reality of the Good, the True, the Beautiful--becomes
false on the level of duality. Here the twofold powers, the opposites, do exist,
do hold the world in their sway. To deny relative evil here is to confuse
different planes of being. (11-1.10)
17
It is a man's own internal defects which often
conspire against him and which show their faces in many of the external troubles
that beset him. Yet it is hard for him to accept this truth because his whole
life-habit is to look outwards, to construct defensive alibis rather than to
engage in censorious self-inquisition. Sheikh al Khuttali, a Sufi adept,
addressing a disciple who complained at his circumstances, said: "O my son, be
assured that there is a cause for every decree of Providence. Whatever good or
evil God creates, do not in any place or circumstance quarrel with his action or
be aggrieved in thy heart." Therefore, the aspirant who is really earnest about
the quest should develop the attitude that his personal misfortunes, troubles,
and disappointments must be traced back to his own weaknesses, defects, faults,
deficiencies, and indisciplines. Let him not blame them on other persons or on
fate. In this way he will make the quickest progress whereas by self-defending,
or self-justifying, or self-pitying apportionment of blame to causes outside
himself, he will delay or prevent it. For the one means clinging to the ego, the
other means giving it up. Nothing is to be gained by such flattering
self-deception while much may be lost by it. He must bring himself to admit
frankly that he himself is the primary cause of most of his ills, as well as the
secondary cause of some of the ills of others. He must recognize that the
emotions of resentment, anger, self-pity, or despondency are often engendered by
a wounded ego. Instead of reviling fate at each unfortunate event, he should
analyse his moral and mental make-up and look for the weaknesses which led to
it. He will gain more in the end by mercilessly accusing his own stubbornness in
pursuing wrong courses than by taking shelter in alibis that censure other
people. Like a stone in a shoe which he stubbornly refuses to remove, the fault
still remains in his character when he stubbornly insists on blaming things or
condemning persons for its consequences. In this event the chance to eliminate
it is lost, and the same dire consequences may repeat themselves in his life
again.
The faith of the lower ego in itself, the strength with which it clings to its own standpoint are almost terrifying to contemplate. The aspirant is often unconscious of its selfishness. But if he can desert its standpoint, he shall then be in a position to perceive how large an element it has contributed in the making of his own troubles, how heavy is its responsibility for unpleasant events which he has hitherto ascribed to outside sources. He shall see that his miserable fate derives largely from his own miserable faults. He is naturally unwilling to open his eyes to his own deficiencies and faults, his little weaknesses and large maladjustments. So suffering comes to open his eyes for him, to shock and shame him into belated awareness and eventual amendment. But quite apart from its unfortunate results in personal fortunes, whenever the aspirant persists in taking the lower ego's side and justifying its action, he merely displays a stupid resolve to hinder his own spiritual advancement. Behind a self-deceiving facade of pretexts, excuses, alibis, and rationalizations, the ego is forever seeking to gratify its unworthy feelings or to defend them. On the same principle as the pseudo-patriotism which prompted the Italians to follow Mussolini blindly throughout his Ethiopian adventure to its final disaster, the principle of "My country! right or wrong," he follows the ego through all its operations just as blindly and as perversely, justifying its standpoints merely because they happen to be his own. But the higher Self accepts no rivals. The aspirant must choose between denying his ego's aggressiveness or asserting it. The distance to be mentally travelled between these two steps is so long and so painful that it is understandable why few will ever finish it. It is only the exceptional student who will frankly admit his faults and earnestly work to correct them. It is only he whose self-criticizing detachment can gain the upper hand, who can also gain philosophy's highest prize. (11-2.19)
18
If the ego cannot trap him through his vices it
will try to do so through his virtues. When he has made enough progress to
warrant it, he will be led cunningly and insensibly into spiritual pride. Too
quickly and too mistakenly he will believe himself to be set apart from other
men by his attainments. When this belief is strong and sustained, that is, when
his malady of conceit calls for a necessary cure, a pit will be dug
unconsciously for him by other men and his own ego will lead him straight into
it. Out of the suffering which will follow this downfall, he will have chance to
grow humbler. (11-2.55)
19
So what are depressions and sadnesses but the ego
pitying itself, shedding silent tears over itself, loving itself, looking at
itself and enwrapped in itself? What is a happy calm but a killing of such
egoism? (11-2.28)
20
His failure follows inevitably from his attempt to
serve two masters. The ego is strong and cunning and clamant. The Overself is
silent and patient and remote. In every battle the dice are loaded in the ego's
favour. In every battle high principle runs counter to innate prejudice.
(11-2.54)
21
The root of all the trouble is not man's
wickedness or animality or cunning greedy mind. It is his very I-ness, for all
those other evils grow out of it. It is his own ego. Here is the extraordinary
and baffling self-contradiction of the human situation. It is man's individual
existence which brings him suffering and yet it is this very existence which he
holds as dear as life to him! (11-2.22)
22
What are the blockages which prevent the soul's
light, grace, peace, love, and healing from reaching us? There are many
different kinds, but they are resolvable into the following: first, all
negative; second, all egoistic; and third, all aggressive. By "aggressive" I
mean that we are intruding our personality and imposing our ideas all the time.
If we would stop this endless aggression and be inwardly still for a while, we
would be able to hear and receive what the Soul has to say and to give us.
(11-2.24)
23
You must plant your feet firmly on one definite
purpose. Opposition will whirl around you, but hold on. Perverted Man is full of
prejudice, and ninety-nine out of every one hundred you meet will unconsciously
or consciously attempt to deflect you from your divine purpose.
24
It is tantalizingly hard to effect the passage
from the lower to higher state. For between them lies an intermediate zone of
consciousness which possesses an ensnaring quality and in which the ego makes
its last desperate effort to keep him captive. Hence this zone is the source of
attractive psychic experiences, of spiritual self-aggrandizements, of so-called
messianic personal claims and redemptive missions, of great truths cunningly
coalesced into great deceptions. (11-2.49)
25
The path is beset not only by the pitfalls arising
out of one's own human failings, but at critical times by unconscious or
conscious evil beings in human form who seek to destroy faith through falsehoods
and to undermine reliance on true guidance through sidetracks and traps.
(11-2.58)
26
The storms of violent passion are to be resisted
as the smoothness of inner peace is to be invited. (11-4.66)
27
We may regret the existence of these faults in
others, but we may not refuse to recognize them if practical dealings are
involved. (11-4.98)
28
If he finds himself brought by circumstances into
the society of evil-minded people, the first step to self-protection should be
to switch the mind instantly into remembrance of the witness-self and to keep it
there throughout the period of contact. To turn inwards persistently when in the
presence of such discordant persons is to nullify any harmful or disturbing
effect they might otherwise have on our thoughts. (11-4.127)
29
Until such time as each member of a community,
nation, or society practises sufficient self-control to bring about his own
inner peace, it is illusory to expect outer peace in the world. This is why
history is a record of conflict.
30
There is no perpetual peace anywhere on this
planet, only perpetual strife. But it is open to man to take the violence, the
murder, and the war out of this strife. He may purge it of its savage beast
qualities. (11-3.344)
31
The malign powers of evil in the world, which have
been so widely spread, so active and so violent in our own generation, are not
to be ignored by dreaming optimism.
32
The world's evil and untruth are plainly there.
The saint may not want to see them, because he does not want to think badly
about other people; but the philosopher must distinguish them and harms no one
by doing so, because he sees the Good and the True behind everything at the same
time.
33
If he must hate something, let him hate hatred
itself. (11-4.65)
34
Yes, there is odious evil in the world--much of it
petty but some of it quite monstrous. It takes its genesis in the thoughts of
men. (11-4.36)
35
The nihilistic nature of Existentialism is shown
by its founder, Sartre, holding the opinion, according to Simone de Beauvoir,
that if there was nothing to attack and destroy, the writing of books would not
be worthwhile.
36
The Existentialists have given pessimism and
nihilism a morbid prestige.
37
He should never allow the actions or words of
ignorant men to arouse in him reactions of anger, envy, or resentment. (11-4.76)
38
Throw out negative thoughts as they would hinder
the uplift of your mind. Replace them by frequent and positive remembrance of
the Overself.
39
What we see around us in the world today--poison
in the air, water, soil, food, even in the stratosphere, and destroying the
human body through disease--is but a reflected crystallization of poison in the
human mind and heart. If the invisible evil were not present, the visible one
would not have come into existence. Even those whose faith can not stretch so
far, can trace the direct lines of connection by the use of reason alone.
40
What is the opposing quality to the violence of
today? Not merely nonviolence--a negative one--but gentleness--a positive one.
(11-3.479)
41
Mentalism says that most of one's misery is
inflicted on oneself by accepting and holding negative thoughts. They cover and
hide the still centre of one's being, which is infinite happiness. (11-4.37)
42
Long ago Buddha said that if we make room in our
minds for negative, bitter thoughts of complaint, outrage, or injury against
those who mistreat us, we shall not be free and will remain unable to find
peace. (11-5.88)
43
Their faith in a higher purpose of life having
failed, it is not long before the labour of correcting and purifying human
nature will seem unnecessary. (11-5.54)
44
The sinister spread of black magic, withcraft,
sexual perversion, and drug-addiction in our own time is menacing. Some of their
votaries are consciously worshipping demonic powers, evil as such, others only
because they have been misled into the belief that it is the Good. (11-3.15)
45
We would not allow full freedom of movement to
plague-carrying rats in our kitchens and homes. Yet we allow these human
carriers of mental plague the freedom to print and publish, declaim, and
propogate their poisonous suggestions and negative ideas, their pornography and
violence, their hates and moral subversion, their evil. (11-4.55)
46
The evil forces working through mediums are
cunning enough not to show their true ultimate aims all at once. These become
clear to the observer only by successive stages, only gradually. Whoever has
critically studied the ways of evil spirits will know that they first lure their
mediumistic victims or gullible public along the path of self-injury or even
self-destruction by winning their confidence with a series of successful
predictions or favourable interventions. When this confidence has been well
established, these dark forces then reveal their real intent by persuading their
victims, through gigantic lies or false predictions, to commit a final act in
which everything is staked on a single throw. The unhappy dupes invariably lose
this last throw and are then overwhelmed by shattering disaster. This occurred
in Hitler's case with his sudden attack on Russia in 1941. He then stated his
belief that Moscow would be reached within six to seven weeks. But his soldiers
never reached Moscow. His invisible guides had indeed betrayed him. How true are
Shakespeare's words from Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 3: "But 'tis strange:/ And
oftentimes, to win us to our harm,/ The instruments of darkness tell us truths,/
Win us with honest trifles, to betray us/ In deepest consequence."
47
Do not gaze overlong upon that person, that thing,
that place, whose history is evil, whose nature is evil, lest you imperil
yourself, or your health, or your fortunes. Better, avoid them if you can.
48
As that esteemed Indian yogi and philosopher, the
late Sri Aurobindo more than once mentioned, those who are working for the
survival of Truth in a truthless world thereby become targets for powerful
forces of hatred wrath and falsehood. Whoever publicly bears a deeply spiritual
message to humanity, has to suffer from evil's opposition. (11-2.62)
49
When men who have spent their whole lives
harbouring destructive ideas are given a constructive teaching, they are
naturally impermeable and unreceptive to it. There are materialists who are
impatient at hearing philosophic truths and even irritated by them. Such persons
may even become quite violently abusive. This happens because they have
completely lost their capacity to practise calm unprejudiced abstract thinking,
and because they have crushed the feeling of veneration before something higher
or nobler than themselves--whether it be a beautiful landscape or God. (11-5.45)