Even the smallest meanest work became
A sweet or glad and glorious sacrament,
An offering to the self of the great world
Or a service to the One in each and all.
Sri Aurobindo – Savitri: CWSA, Vol. 34, Book Six, p. 532
All service done sincerely to the Divine is sadhana.
And all increase in the urge to serve is a sure sign of progress.
The Mother – Words of the Mother – II : CWM, Vol. 14, p. 105
Life has a purpose.
This purpose is to find and to serve the Divine.
The Divine is not far, He is in ourselves, deep inside and above the feelings and the thoughts. With the Divine is peace and certitude and even the solution of all difficulties.
Hand over your problems to the Divine and He will pull you out of all difficulties.
The Mother – Words of the Mother – II : CWM, Vol. 14, p. 5
Whatever you do in life must be done as a service to the Divine and nobody else.
Whatever you are, think or feel, you are responsible for it to the Divine and to nobody else.
He is the sole Master of your being and your life. If in all sincerity you surrender entirely to Him He will take charge of you and your heart will be in peace.
All the rest belongs to the world of Ignorance and is governed by ignorance which means confusion and suffering.
The Mother – Words of the Mother – II : CWM, Vol. 14, p. 105
We must be always, solely and exclusively, the servitors of the Divine.
Above all preferences we want to be at the service of the Divine.
The Mother – Words of the Mother – II : CWM, Vol. 14, p. 104
Do not live to be happy, live to serve the Divine and the joy that you will experience will be beyond all expectations.
The Mother – Words of the Mother – II : CWM, Vol. 14, p. 7
To be at the Divine’s service is the surest means of attaining realisation.
The Mother – Words of the Mother – II : CWM, Vol. 14, p. 105
(About service to the Divine and meditation)
Both are equally good. Nevertheless, through service one can attain a fuller realisation than through meditation alone.
The Mother – Words of the Mother – II : CWM, Vol. 14, p. 105
Energy is in perpetual movement. It enters and leaves your physical being (mental, vital and material) and it is during your stay in what you call “you” that you must make of it an offering to the Divine and put it at His service.
Then automatically you will do at each instant what the Divine wants you to do.
***
The whole life turned towards the Divine, offered to the Divine, at the service of the Divine, to become little by little an expression of the Divine.
The Mother – Words of the Mother – II : CWM, Vol. 14, p. 105-06
To be and to become more and more what the Divine wants us to be should be our greatest preoccupation.
The Mother – Words of the Mother – II : CWM, Vol. 14, p. 6
…. “Freedom is the law of being in its illimitable unity, secret master of all Nature: servitude is the law of love in the being voluntarily giving itself to serve the play of its other selves in the multiplicity.” Sri Aurobindo – Bande Mataram : CWSA, Vol. 13, p. 206
At a superficial glance these two things appear absolutely contradictory and incompatible. Outwardly one cannot conceive how one can be at once in freedom and in servitude, but there is an attitude which reconciles the two and makes them one of the happiest states of material existence.
Freedom is a sort of instinctive need, a necessity for the integral development of the being. In its essence it is a perfect realisation of the highest consciousness, it is the expression of Unity and of union with the Divine, it is the very sense of the Origin and the fulfilment. But because this Unity has manifested in the many—in the multiplicity—something had to serve as a link between the Origin and the manifestation, and the most perfect link one can conceive of is love. And what is the first gesture of love? To give oneself, to serve. What is its spontaneous, immediate, inevitable movement? To serve. To serve in a joyous, complete, total self-giving.
So, in their purity, in their truth, these two things—freedom and service—far from being contradictory, are complementary.It is in perfect union with the supreme Reality that perfect freedom is found, for all ignorance, all unconsciousness is a bondage which makes you inefficient, limited, powerless. The least ignorance in oneself is a limitation, one is no longer free. As long as there is an element of unconsciousness in the being, it is a limitation, a bondage. Only in perfect union with the supreme Reality can perfect freedom exist. And how to realise this union if not through a spontaneous self-giving: the gift of love. And as I said, the first gesture, the first expression of love is service.
The Mother – Questions and Answers : CWM, Vol. 9, pp. 50-51
Service
To be at the service of the Divine is the surest way to attain realisation.
Copper pod, Rusty shield-bearer, Yellow flamboyant, Yellow poinciana, Yellow flame
Small fragrant yellow flower with five separated delicately crinkled petals and exserted stamens; the sepals and base of the flower are rust- coloured; borne in large terminal panicles. A medium to large ornamental tree.
The Mother – Spiritual significance of flowers
You have to regard yourself as a soul and body created for [the Divine Mother’s] service, one who does all for her sake. Even if the idea of the separate worker is strong in you and you feel that it is you who do the act, yet it must be done for her. . . . There must be no demand for fruit and no seeking for reward; the only fruit for you is the pleasure of the Divine Mother and the fulfillment of her work, your only reward a constant progression in divine consciousness and calm and strength and bliss. The joy of service and the joy of inner growth through works is the sufficient recompense of the selfless worker.
SRI AUROBINDO
There is no greater joy than to serve the Divine.
THE MOTHER
The work here is not intended for showing one’s capacity or having a position or as a means of physical nearness to the Mother, but as a field and an opportunity for the Karmayoga part of the integral Yoga—for learning to work in the true Yogic way—dedication through service, practical selflessness, obedience, scrupulousness, discipline, setting the Divine and the Divine’s work first and oneself last, harmony, patience, forbearance etc. When the workers learn these things and cease to be egocentric, as most of you now are, then will come the time for work in which capacity can really be shown—although even then the showing of capacity will be an incident and can never be the main consideration or the object of divine work.
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Himself and the Ashram : CWSA, Vol. 35, p. 750
What you write shows that you had a wrong idea of the work. The work in the Ashram was not meant as a service to humanity or to a section of it called the sadhaks of the Ashram. It was not meant either as an opportunity for a joyful social life and a flow of sentiments and attachments between the sadhaks and an expression of the vital movements, a free vital interchange whether with some or with all. The work was meant as a service to the Divine and as a field for the inner opening to the Divine, surrender to the Divine alone, rejection of ego and all the ordinary vital movements and the training in a psychic elevation, selflessness, obedience, renunciation of all mental, vital or other self-assertion of the limited personality. Self-affirmation is not the aim, development of the personal self is not the aim, the formation of a collective vital ego is also not the aim. The merging of the little ego in union with the Divine, purification, surrender, the substitution of the Divine guidance for one’s own ignorant self-guidance based on one’s personal ideas and personal feelings is the aim of Karma Yoga, the surrender of one’s own will to the Divine Will.
If one feels human beings to be near and the Divine to be far and seeks the Divine through service of and love of human beings and not the direct service and love of the Divine, then one is following a wrong principle—for that is the principle of the mental, vital and moral, not the spiritual life.
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Himself and the Ashram : CWSA, Vol. 35, pp. 752-753
