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This talk is based upon Mother’s essay
“Vital Education”.
“In some ancient initiations it was stated that the number of sees that man can develop is not five but seven and in certain special cases even twelve. Certain races at certain times have, out of necessity, developed more or less perfectly one or another of these supplementary sees. With a proper discipline persistently followed, they are within the reach of all who are sincerely interested in this development and its results. Among the faculties that are often mentioned, there is, for example, the ability to widen the physical consciousness, project it out of oneself so as to concentrate it on a given point and thus obtain sight, hearing, smell, taste and even touch at a distance.”
What are the names of these twelve senses? The names? In the Chaldean tradition they were in Chaldaic. In other traditions, in other languages; in
Page - 10 to know what is going on in the studio. He concentrates his
consciousness and then extends it, so to say (truly it is as though he extended
it almost materially), and he goes along the whole way and reaches the studio.
If he does this properly, he sees what there is in the studio, can hear what is
going on, though he is not there himself: the body is lying in a bed in a room,
but the consciousness is projected. It is a physical consciousness. It is not an inner state, for one sees
physically, hears physically. If there
are people in the room one sees them, and if they are speaking one hears them
speaking. Naturally, it is not from the very first day that one succeeds; it
asks for a very rigorous discipline. It corresponds a little (a little) to that
capacity which was developed in the Red India due to the conditions of their
life. I don’t know how it is at present, but formerly they used to put their
ear to the earth, and they had so fine an ear that they could hear steps more
than a mile away. They heard the steps of those who were walking at a distance
of more than two or three kilometres simply by putting their ear to the ground.
Or take the dog which, if given something to smell, finds the trail of that
scent again, can follow it with its nose. Well, it is one kind of super-see,
that is, a see that has reached such a degree of intensity and refinement that
it can indeed feel what the ordinary see does not feel, can see at a distance,
really see, see physically at a distance, through walls. It is said that the
blind develop a see which enables them to feel an object at a distance. They do
not see, they walk in darkness as in a black night; but they have a kind of see
of touch at a distance, a material contact due to which, long before touching
the object, they know; for example, if there is a piece of furniture in their
way, long before knocking against it, they feel it from a distance. In
children the mind is not developed when they are small. Is this also true of
the vital? No, the vital is much more developed than the mind. You know,
Page - 11 Are
bad habits, as for instance that of not keeping things in order, due to the
vital? That depends. For example, children who have no order, who can’t
keep their things carefully but lose or spoil them – there
Page - 12 are three reasons for this. Most often it is a child who lacks
vitality. When it is like that, when it can’t keep its things care fully and
all is in disorder around it, this is always a sign of a lack of vitality; it
does not have sufficient vitality to take interest in these outer things. The
second reason is that it lacks interest in material life, the life of things,
and that it has no discipline, doesn’t discipline itself. For instance,
children when they undress throw their clothes all over the place; or else,
when they have finished playing, they leave their toys lying about; when they
have written out their homework, everything is littered all around: the
fountain-pen on one side, the notebook on another, the reader on a third, and
then all these get lost. Unfortunately that’s how it is with the great majority
of the children here at the school, they lose everything. I have found books
reduced to pulp because they had spent the whole night on a flower-pot and it
had rained the next morning! When they were found, they were like gruel. But
that is rare. Pencils too – I have a collection of fountain-pens and pencils
picked up thus, having been lost. These are absolutely undisciplined natures,
those who have no method, and within themselves they don’t have any method. And
into the bargain they despise things – so, as Sri Aurobindo says, they are not
worthy of having them. People who don’t know how to deal with things carefully,
don’t deserve to have them. Sri Aurobindo has often written on this subject in
his letters. He has said that if you don’t know how to take care of material
things, you have no right to have them. Indeed this shows a kind of selfishness
and confusion in the human being, and it is not a good sign. And then later
when they grow up, some of them cannot keep a cupboard in order or a drawer in
order. They may be in a room which looks very tidy and very neat outwardly, and
then you open a drawer or a cupboard, it is like a battlefield! Everything is
pell-mell. You find everything in a jumble; nothing is arranged. These are people
with a poor little head in which ideas lie in the same state as their material
objects. They have not organised their ideas. They haven’t put
Page - 13 them in order. They live in a cerebral confusion. And that is a
sure sign, I have never met an exception to this rule: people who don’t know
how to keep their things in order – their ideas are in disorder in their heads,
always. They exist together, the most contradictory ideas are put together, and
not through a higher synthesis, don’t you believe it: simply because of a
disorder and an incapacity to organise their ideas. You don’t need to speak
even for ten minutes with people if you can manage to enter their room and open
the drawers of their tables and look into their cupboard. You know in what
state they are, don’t you? On the other hand, there was
someone (I shall tell you who afterwards) who had in his room hundreds of
books, countless sheets of paper, notebooks and all sorts of things, and so you
entered the room and saw books and papers everywhere – a whole pile, it was
quite full. But if you were unfortunate enough to shift a single little bit of
paper from its place, he knew it immediately and asked you, “Who has touched my
things?” You, when you come in, see so many things that you feel quite lost.
And yet each thing had its place. And it was so consciously done, I tell you,
that if one paper was displaced – for instance, a paper with notes on it or a
letter or something else which was taken away from one place and placed in
another with the idea of putting things in order – he used to say, “You have
touched my things; you have displaced them and created a disorder in my
things.” That of course was Sri Aurobindo! That means you must not confuse
order with poverty. Naturally if you have about a dozen books and a very
limited number of things, it is easier to keep them in order, but what one must
succeed in doing is to put into order – and a logical, conscious, intelligent
order – a countless number of things. That asks for a capacity of organization.
Of course, if someone is very ill,
has no strength to spare, then that’s different. And yet even here, there are
limits. I knew ill people who could tell you, “Open this drawer and in the left
corner at the back you will find such and such a thing under
Page - 14 such another”; the man could not move and take it himself, but he
knew very well where it was. But apart from that, the ideal is to have some
organization, as for instance of the kind found in libraries where there are
hundreds of thousands of books and where everything is classified (naturally it
is not done by just one man), but it is a work in which each thing is so well
classified that, despite all, if you bring a card and say “I want this book”, a
quarter of an hour later you have it or sometimes in five minutes. That is
organization. And yet there are rooms full of books there. But all this is the
result of work perfected by a large number of men, the result of a professional
organization. Well, for oneself, one
must organise one’s own things – and at the same time one’s own ideas – in the
same way, and must know exactly where things are and be able to go straight to
them, because one’s organization is logical. It is your own logic – it may not
be your neighbour’s logic, not necessarily, it is your own logic – but your
organization being logical, you know exactly where a thing is and, as I told
you, if that thing is displaced, you know it immediately. And those who can do
that are generally those who can put their ideas into order and can also
organise their character and can finally control their movements. And then, if
you make progress, you succeed in governing your physical life; you begin to
have a control over your physical movements. If you take life in that way,
truly it be comes interesting. If one lives in a confusion, a disorder, an
inner and outer chaos in which everything is mixed up and one is conscious of
nothing and still less is master of things, this is not living. This is not
living, it is being in a sea of Inconscience, being tossed about by the waves,
caught by the currents, thrown against rocks, seized again by another wave and
thrown against another rock; and one goes on thus with bruises and blows and
bumps. And then, should one ask you, “Why is it like this?” – “I don’t know.” –
“Why did you do that?” – “I don’t know.” – “Why do you think in this way?” – “I
don’t know.” – “Why did you make that movement?” – “I don’t know.” All
Page - 15 the answers are “I don’t know”. Essentially there is but one single
true reason for living: it is to know oneself. We are here – to learn to learn
what we are, why we are here, and what we have to do. And if we don’t know
that, our life is altogether empty – for ourselves and for others. And so, generally, it is better to
begin early, for there is much to learn. If one wants to learn about life as it
is, the world as it is, and then really know the why and the how of life, one
can begin when very young, from the time one is very, very tiny – before the
age of five. And then, when one is a hundred, he will still be able to learn.
So it is interesting. And all the time one can have surprises, always learn
something one didn’t know, meet with an experience one did not have before,
find some thing one was ignorant of. It is surely very interesting. And the
more one knows, the more aware does one become that one has everything to
learn. Truly, I could say that only fools believe they know. That indeed is a
sure sign, someone coming and telling you, “Oh! I know all that; oh! I know all
that”; he is immediately sized up! You have said: “Everyone possesses... two opposite tendencies of character,… which are like the light and the shadow of the same thing.”
“Everyone possesses in a large measure, and the exceptional individual in an increasing degree of precision, two opposite tendencies of character, in almost equal proportions, which are like the light and the shadow of the same thing. Thus someone who has the capacity of being exceptionally generous will suddenly find an obstinate avarice rising up in his nature, the courageous man will be a coward in some part of his being and the good man will suddenly have wicked impulses. In this way life seems to endow everyone not only with the possibility of expressing an ideal, but also with contrary elements representing in a concrete manner the battle he has to wage and the victory he has to win for the realisation to become possible. Consequently, all life is an education pursued more or less consciously, more or less willingly.”
Page - 16 Yes, if one eliminates the shadow. But it must be eliminated. That does not happen by itself. The world as
it is is a mixed world. You cannot have an object which gets the light from one
side without its casting a shadow on the other. It is like that, and indeed it
is the shadows which make you see the lights. The world is like that, and to
have only the light one must definitely go through the entire discipline
necessary for eliminating the shadow. This is what I have explained a little
farther; I have said that this shadow was like a sign of what you had to
conquer in your nature in order to be able to realise what you have come to do.
If you have a part to play, a mission to fulfil, you will always carry in
yourself the main difficulty preventing you from realizing it, so that you have
within your reach the victory you must win. If you had to fight against a
difficulty which is everywhere on earth, it would be very difficult (you would
need to have a very vast consciousness and a very great power), while if you
carry in your own nature just the shadow or defect you must conquer, well, it
is there, within your reach: you see all the time the effects of this thing and
can fight it directly, immediately. It is a very practical organization. You haven’t seen in the Bulletin that letter of Sri Aurobindo’s: the “Evil Persona”? It is in the Bulletin. The thing is very well explained there1
“What you say about the “Evil Persona” interests me greatly as it answers to my consistent experience that a person greatly endowed for the work has, always or almost always, – perhaps one ought not to make a too rigid universal rule about these things – a being attached to him, sometimes appearing like a part of him, which is just the contradiction of the thing he centrally represents in the work to be done. Or, if it is not there at first, not bound to his personality, a force of this kind enters into his environment as soon as he begins his movement to realise. Its business seems to be to oppose, to create stumbling and wrong conditions, in a word, to set before him the whole problem of the work he has started to do. It would seem as if the problem could not, in the occult economy of things, be solved other wise than by the predestined instrument making the difficulty his own. That would explain many things that seem very disconcerting on the surface.”
[ Letters on Yoga, Cent. Vol. 24, p. 16].
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