The Mother's Guidance
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Sri Aurobindo
The Mother
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An occasional sinking of the consciousness happens to everybody. The causes are various, some touch from outside, something not yet changed or not sufficiently changed in the vital, especially the lower vital, some inertia or obscurity rising up from the physical parts of nature. When it comes, remain quiet, open yourself to the Mother and call back the true condition, and aspire for a clear and undisturbed discrimination showing you from within yourself the cause or the thing that needs to be set right. – Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo
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All education of the body should begin at birth and
continue throughout life. It is never too soon to begin nor too late to
continue.
Physical education has three principal aspects: (1) control
and discipline of the functioning of the body, (2) an integral, methodical and
harmonious development of all the parts and movements of the body and (3)
correction of any defects and deformities.
The Mother – On
Education: Physical Education: CWM, Vol. 12, p. 12
…But we are not seeking an exclusive perfection in one
thing or another, we are trying to make everything go forward together to a
common, integral perfection. And these things have their place and importance….
The Mother – Questions
and Answers: 30 November 1955, CWM, Vol. 7, p. 386
To pursue an integral education that leads to the
supramental realisation, four austerities are necessary, and with them four
liberations.
Austerity is usually confused with self-mortification,
and when someone speaks of austerities, we think of the discipline of the
ascetic who, in order to avoid the arduous task of spiritualising the physical,
vital and mental life, declares it incapable of transformation and casts it
away ruthlessly as a useless encumbrance, as a bondage and an impediment to all
spiritual progress, in any case as something incorrigible, as a load that has
to be borne more or less cheerfully until Nature, or divine Grace, delivers you
from it by death. At best, life on earth is a field for progress and one should
take advantage of it as best one can in order to reach as soon as possible the
degree of perfection which will put an end to the ordeal by making it
unnecessary.
For us the problem is quite different. Life on earth is
not a passage or a means; by transformation it must become a goal and a realisation.
Consequently, when we speak of austerities, it is not out of contempt for the
body nor to detach ourselves from it, but because of the need for control and
mastery. For there is an austerity which is far greater, far more complete and
far more difficult than all the austerities of the ascetic: it is the austerity
which is necessary for the integral transformation, the fourfold austerity
which prepares the individual for the manifestation of the supramental truth.
For example, one can say that few austerities are as strict as those which
physical culture demands for the perfection of the body. But we shall return to
this point in due time.
The Mother – On
Education: The Four Austerities and the Four Liberations, Vol. 12, p. 48
Sublime Mother,
Our aim is no exclusive national system of education
for India but an essential and fundamental education for all mankind. But is it
not true, Mother, that this education, because of India’s special fitness by
virtue of her past cultural striving and attainment, is India’s privilege and
special responsibility towards herself and the world? At any rate, this
essential education is India’s national education to my mind. In fact, I regard
this as the national education of each great country with characteristic
differentiations peculiar to each nation.
I wonder whether this is correct and Mother would
endorse it.
Yes, this is quite correct and part of what I would have
said if I had had time to answer your questions.
India has or rather had the knowledge of the Spirit,
but she neglected matter and suffered for it.
The West has the knowledge of matter but rejected the
Spirit and suffers badly for it.
An integral education which could, with some variations,
be adapted to all the nations of the world, must bring back the legitimate
authority of the Spirit over a matter fully developed and utilised.
This is in short what I wanted to say.
With blessings.
26 July 1965
The Mother – Words
of the Mother – I: CWM, Vol. 13, p. 361
I have said that from a young age children should be
taught to respect good health, physical strength and balance. The great
importance of beauty must also be emphasised. A young child should aspire for
beauty, not for the sake of pleasing others or winning their admiration, but
for the love of beauty itself; for beauty is the ideal which all physical life
must realise. Every human being has the possibility of establishing harmony
among the different parts of his body and in the various movements of the body
in action. Every human body that undergoes a rational method of culture from
the very beginning of its existence can realise its own harmony and thus become
fit to manifest beauty. When we speak of the other aspects of an integral
education, we shall see what inner conditions are to be fulfilled so that this
beauty can one day be manifested.
So far I have referred only to the education to be given
to children; for a good many bodily defects can be rectified and many malformations
avoided by an enlightened physical education given at the proper time. But if
for any reason this physical education has not been given during childhood or
even in youth, it can begin at any age and be pursued throughout life. But the
later one begins, the more one must be prepared to meet bad habits that have to
be corrected, rigidities to be made supple, malformations to be rectified. And
this preparatory work will require much patience and perseverance before one
can start on a constructive programme for the harmonisation of the form and its
movements. But if you keep alive within you the ideal of beauty that is to be
realised, sooner or later you are sure to reach the goal you have set yourself.
Bulletin, April 1951
The Mother – On
Education: Physical Education, CWM, Vol. 12, pp. 16-17
Another invaluable result of these activities [sports,
etc.] is the growth of what has been called the sporting spirit. That includes
good humour and tolerance and consideration for all, a right attitude and
friendliness to competitors and rivals, self-control and scrupulous observance
of the laws of the game, fair play and avoidance of the use of foul means, an
equal acceptance of victory or defeat without bad humour, resentment or
ill-will towards successful competitors, loyal acceptance of the decisions of
the appointed judge, umpire or referee. These qualities have their value for
life in general and not only for sport, but the help that sport can give to
their development is direct and invaluable. If they could be made more common
not only in the life of the individual but in the national life and in the
international where at the present day the opposite tendencies have become too
rampant, existence in this troubled world of ours would be smoother and might
open to a greater chance of concord and amity of which it stands very much in
need…. even a highest and completest education of the mind is not enough
without education of the body…. The nation which possesses [these qualities] in
the highest degree is likely to be the strongest for victory, success and
greatness, but also for the contribution it can make towards the bringing about
of unity and a more harmonious world order towards which we look as our hope
for humanity’s future.
Sri Aurobindo – The
Supramental Manifestation, SABCL, Vol. 16, pp. 2-4
