Equanimity is one of the twelve attributes of the Mother’s symbol.
Equality is to remain unmoved within in all conditions.
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Yoga – II: CWSA, Vol. 29, p. 130
Not to be disturbed by either joy or grief, pleasure or displeasure by what people say or do or by any outward things is called in yoga a state of samata, equality to all things. It is of immense importance in sadhana to be able to reach this state. It helps the mental quietude and silence as well as the vital to come. It means indeed that the vital itself and the vital mind are already falling silent and becoming quiet. The thinking mind is sure to follow.
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Yoga – IV: CWSA, Vol. 31, p. 335
Yogic Samata is equality of soul, equanimity founded on the sense of the one Self, the one Divine everywhere—seeing the One in spite of all differences, degrees, disparities in the manifestation. The mental principle of equality tries to ignore or else to destroy the differences, degrees and disparities, to act as if all were equal there or to try and make all equal….
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Yoga – II: CWSA, Vol. 29, p. 129
The equality of the soul… is the power to bear all happenings, good or bad, without being sad, discouraged, desperate, upset. Whatever happens, you remain serene, peaceful.
The Mother – Questions and Answers: CWM, Vol. 5, pp. 22 – 23
The Divine Worker
I face earth’s happenings with an equal soul;
In all are heard Thy steps: Thy unseen feet
Tread Destiny’s pathways in my front. Life’s whole
Tremendous theorem is Thou complete.
…..
Sri Aurobindo – Collected Poems: CWSA, Vol. 2, p. 612
A boundless being in a measureless Time
Invaded Nature with the infinite;
He saw unpathed, unwalled, his titan scope.
Sri Aurobindo – Savitri: CWSA, Vol. 33 , Book One, p. 83
There can be no firm foundation in sadhana without equality, samatā. Whatever the unpleasantness of circumstances, however disagreeable the conduct of others, you must learn to receive them with a perfect calm and without any disturbing reaction. These things are the test of equality. It is easy to be
calm and equal when things go well and people and circumstances are pleasant; it is when they are the opposite that the completeness of the calm, peace, equality can be tested, reinforced, made perfect.
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Yoga – II: CWSA, Vol. 29, p. 129
Complete samata takes long to establish and it is dependent on three things—the soul’s self-giving to the Divine by an inner surrender, the descent of the spiritual calm and peace from above and the steady, long and persistent rejection of all egoistic, rajasic and other feelings that contradict samata.
The first thing to do is to make the full consecration and offering in the heart—the increase of the spiritual calm and the surrender are the condition for making the rejection of ego, rajoguna etc. effective.
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Yoga – II: CWSA, Vol. 29, p. 131
Equality, renunciation of all desire of the fruit of our works, action done as a sacrifice to the supreme Lord of our nature and of all nature, – these are the three first Godward approaches in the Gita’s way of Karmayoga.
Sri Aurobindo – The Synthesis of Yoga – I: CWSA, Vol. 23, p. 105
The inner spiritual progress does not depend on outer conditions so much as in the way we react to them from within—that has always been the ultimate verdict of spiritual experience. It is why we insist on taking the right attitude and persisting in it, on an inner state not dependent on outer circumstances, a state of equality and calm….
….
A spiritual atmosphere is more important than outer conditions; if one can get that and also create one’s own spiritual air to breathe in and live in it, that is the true condition of progress.
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Yoga – II: CWSA, Vol. 29, p. 140
Equality is a very important part of this Yoga; it is necessary to keep equality under pain and suffering—and that means to endure firmly and calmly, not to be restless or troubled or depressed or despondent, to go on in a steady faith in the Divine Will. But equality does not include inert acceptance. If, for instance, there is temporary failure of some endeavour in the sadhana, one has to keep equality, not to be troubled or despondent, but one has not to accept the failure as an indication of the Divine Will and give up the endeavour. You ought rather to find out the reason and meaning of the failure and go forward in faith towards victory. So with illness—you have not to be troubled, shaken or restless, but you have not to accept illness as the Divine Will, but rather look upon it as an imperfection of the body to be got rid of as you try to get rid of vital imperfections or mental errors.
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Yoga – II: CWSA, Vol. 29, p. 134
Equality means a quiet and unmoved mind and vital; it means not to be touched or disturbed by things that happen or things said or done to you but to look at them with a straight look, free from the distortions created by personal feeling, and to try to understand what is behind them, why they happen, what is to be learnt from them, what is it in oneself which they are cast against and what inner profit or progress one can make out of them; it means self-mastery over the vital movements, anger and sensitiveness and pride as well as desire and the rest, not to let them get hold of the emotional being and disturb the inner peace, not to speak and act in the rush and impulsion of these things, always to act and speak out of a calm inner poise of the spirit. It is not easy to have this equality in any full and perfect measure, but one should always try more and more to make it the basis of one’s inner state and outer movements.
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Yoga – II: CWSA, Vol. 29, p. 130
Equality does not mean a fresh ignorance or blindness; it does not call for and need not initiate a greyness of vision and a blotting out of all hues. Difference is there, variation of expression is there and this variation we shall appreciate,….
Sri Aurobindo – The Synthesis of Yoga – I: CWSA, Vol. 23, p. 224
…. Greed for food has to be overcome, but it has not to be given too much thought. The proper attitude to food is a certain equality. Food is for the maintenance of the body and one should take enough for that-what the body needs; if one gives less the body feels the need and hankers; if you give more, then that is indulging the vital.
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Yoga – IV: CWSA, Vol. 31, pp. 422 – 23
The best way to prepare oneself for the spiritual life when one has to live in the ordinary occupations and surroundings is to cultivate an entire equality and detachment and the samata of the Gita with the faith that the Divine is there and the Divine Will at work in all things even though at present under the conditions of a world of Ignorance. Beyond this are the Light and Ananda towards which life is working, but the best way for their advent and foundation in the individual being and nature is to grow in this spiritual equality. That would also solve your difficulty about things unpleasant and disagreeable. All unpleasantness should be faced with this spirit of samata.
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Yoga – IV: CWSA, Vol. 31, p. 344
What then are the lines of Karmayoga laid down by the Gita? Its key principle, its spiritual method, can be summed up as the union of two largest and highest states or powers of consciousness, equality and oneness. The kernel of its method is an unreserved acceptance of the Divine in our life as in our inner self and spirit. An inner renunciation of personal desire leads to equality, accomplishes our total surrender to the Divine….
Sri Aurobindo – The Synthesis of Yoga – I: CWSA, Vol. 23, p. 95
The renunciation of attachment to the work and its fruit is the beginning of a wide movement towards an absolute equality in the mind and soul which must become all-enveloping if we are to be perfect in the spirit. For the worship of the Master of works demands a clear recognition and glad acknowledgment of him in ourselves, in all things and in all happenings….
Sri Aurobindo – The Synthesis of Yoga – I: CWSA, Vol. 23, p. 223
…. A perfect spiritual equality is the one true and infallible sign of the cessation of desire, — to be equal-souled to all things, unmoved by joy and sorrow, the pleasant and the unpleasant, success or failure, to look with an equal eye on high and low, friend and enemy, the virtuous and the sinner, to see in all beings the manifold manifestation of the One and in all things the multitudinous play or the slow masked evolution of the embodied Spirit….
Sri Aurobindo – The Synthesis of Yoga – I: CWSA, Vol. 23, p. 177
Equanimity
Immutable peace and calm.
Iberis
Candytuft
Small very dense rounded heads of tiny irregular four-petalled flowers; in white and shades of pink, purple and red. A floriferous low bushy annual or perennial herb.
The Mother – Spiritual significance of flowers
