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LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF SRI AUROBINDO AND THE MOTHER |
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13. MOTHER'S PRINCIPLES IN WORK Work for Mother is a field of greater yogic effectiveness than meditation. Mother says one can make a greater progress in yoga by doing the work in the right spirit than by meditating. By right spirit Mother means taking interest in the work that comes to us instead of seeking to do the work one likes. It looks simple, but this is one of the most difficult disciplines in any yoga. A boy who loves cricket can agree to stop playing it during study period and sit at his table for hours preparing for the examination. He unbends himself from play and bends his energies to work. This is to do one’s duty. This is admirable. By the above discipline Mother wants this boy to derive the same joy in doing his lessons as he derives from cricket playing. Normally that capacity is not within the reach of the boy. At least he can suppress his enthusiasm for cricket, disregard his dislike for study and do his duty. This way he gives his energies to duty. This is good and Mother approves of it. Now what She asks for is that the boy should enjoy his studies as much as he enjoys playing cricket. That is ordinarily beyond human capacity. When a man takes to yoga, accepts Mother, adores Her, loves to do Her bidding, feels the privilege of working for the Divine Mother and sees his reading as something he does for the sake of Mother, joy begins to issue from reading. Within the limits of this act, this is a process of divinisation, transformation, a process of raising man from sensual pleasure to psychic joy. To know that we are doing the work in right spirit, Mother gives an index. After completing a work if one feels joy, he has done it in the right spirit. If one feels tired after a work, he has done it in the old human way. Almost as a rule when a man joins the Ashram the work that falls to his lot is one that he has detested all his life. He has to learn to transform his dislike into enjoyment. That is one aspect of sadhana. A man derives joy from a work when he has great skill in it. He who has high skill in a work can be seen taking pride in it and enjoying it. Several such aspects in the physical, mental expression of a work help one enjoy it. An attempt is made to explain these aspects below. Punctuality, regularity, orderliness, cleanliness, etc. are essential disciplines to accomplish a work. We can say that if the value of punctuality alone is acquired by Indians to the level of European punctuality, it can transform the nation from a poor to a rich one. All of us know its value. It is enjoyable when we possess it. It is very productive. Regularity and other qualities in the list above are more valuable. In 1920 Mother started teaching sadhaks how to keep books in an orderly way. Maximum utilisation of energy, materials, money, water, electricity, etc. is a cardinal principle. In other words, elimination of waste of every description is a value. A company in USA went bankrupt. It was a small company with Rs.5 crore sales. Another man bought it. The first thing he did was to apply a scale of utilisation values he had evolved in his own business. He worked out the percentage of expenditure on every item such as electricity, advertisement, etc. He applied those norms here and found the electric bill was 2.5 times higher than it should have been. He took action to bring down all expenses to within his norms. In three months, the new acquisition became an economically viable one, even profitable. Mother followed all these principles, which would be understood as economy in Ashram life. She used to re-use envelopes by turning them inside out. To approach a work from another man’s point of view is a powerful principle for success in life and work. To approach it from our own point of view only will generate conflicts and produce low results. To approach the same from another man’s point of view is generative of harmony, producing maximum results. I shall give one example. A contractor of sugar mill waste known as pressmud was in business for 17 years and was fairly successful. But over the years his business accumulated outstanding from the farmers to whom he supplied on credit. He had a thick bundle of 200 promissory notes due to him for the last 17 years, periodically renewed. Each year he supplied more, collected a little, lent more and so on. The outstanding remained. A devotee farmer came to the contractor one year. The ruling price of a lorry of mud was Rs.125. As the farmer wanted very large quantities, a Rs.5 reduction was offered and the contractor was willing to increase the reduction even up to Rs.10, the maximum permissible. The devotee had a different approach. It is the approach of taking another man’s point of view. Having sold pressmud for Rs.125, the contractor has only accumulated promissory notes, not cash. The devotee proposed to buy in large quantities at prices that were proposed by the contractor and offered to pay in advance. But he wanted to examine the facts of cost and profit, instead of negotiating an imaginary price. They sat together and worked out costs including payment by the contractor to the sugar mill, labour, sales tax, lorry expenses, etc., without omitting a single detail. At each figure, the farmer included an allowance and rounded it off to the next higher figure. For example, if the factory should be paid every month Rs.2,900, he made it Rs.3,000 If eight workers were needed for a load, he made it nine. When the final figure was arrived at, the farmer asked what net profit the contractor expected from the operation and added it. Further he proposed to add a monthly salary to the contractor paying for his service, even if he was serving himself. The contractor was scandalised and refused it. It worked out to Rs.85 per load for 2,000 lorry loads. The price was fixed at Rs.90. The farmer paid all the money as and when the contractor needed an advance. No farmer could believe that pressmud was supplied at Rs.90. The contractor was able to collect all the 17 year arrears that year, selling a small part of his mud for cash to his old customers. He bought a lorry that year and declared it was the most profitable year for him in business. To take another man’s point of view accomplishes great work at less cost, more smoothly, to the benefit of both parties. An attitude of "work first, anything next" must be the guiding line. To have a good control of speech is a yogic discipline but will yield great results for anyone in any walk of life. The total amount of talking must be brought down to the minimum necessary level. The tone must come down to an audible whisper. These two efforts are very difficult. In business low voice produces great profits. When an industrialist with Rs.10 lakhs annual sales came to Mother, he mentioned his one major industrial problem was a harassing manager who irritated him beyond measure by his umpteen repetitions, which occupied all his time. Among many ideas, he practised low voice and was relieved of the harassment from the manager in one day. His sales rose to Rs.50 lakhs in three years. The voice comes from our life centre and therefore carries a life-power. Conserving the energy through low voice will have desirable results in life. In business, it first of all makes the entrepreneur effective and happy. He functions in a relaxed way. If anyone follows this in business, he will discover that there is no better way to make money. Voice lowered is money conserved. Systems for every individual item of work are essential. Coordination of all systems generates an unheard of power. Personal power must be replaced by the impersonal authority of a system. Mother was great as an organiser. Whatever She did, she functioned through a system. Sitting on a bench near the garage inside the Ashram, I witnessed a man coming with a ladder and a can of grease. Seeing my curiosity about his work, he smiled and explained that there was no special occasion for his work. Mother arranged for a register in the workshop in which fixed dates were given for every little work to be done periodically. Accordingly, this man had come to grease the joints in the collapsible gate in the garage. That is the extent to which Mother paid attention to details and put those details in a system that worked automatically. Ordinarily man carries the weight of his work on his nerves and it gives tension, making people look older than their years. Often we hear, "There are a million details. If I forget one thing, it is not done. I feel like going mad." This is so because this man does not resort to systems. Once you create a system, the work is done well and your nerves are free. A system does the work of 10 or 100 or 1,000 men. That is the value of a system. If systems are valuable, coordination of systems is powerful. Suppose there are 25 systems in a company with a minimum of coordination and they are all coordinated to a maximum extent, the same staff can accomplish twice or thrice more. To give a simple example, in a college if the timetable of the dozen departments is not coordinated, i.e. if each department has its own time table, the two year course will extend to five years and twice as many classrooms must be built. We can see one expression of this at home when there are three cycles for use and five of us are using them. Without coordination, two more cycles must be bought and with coordination, one or two cycles can serve the purpose instead of three. When individual power is exercised, accomplishment is low. If impersonal authority is used through systems, the same man can manage twice the amount of work. Values are lifelines. They have great power. In business one value everyone appreciates is the quality of the product. Every businessman as well as every customer knows fully well the value of quality. If you look at any company and find it is making steady progress, certainly it will be adhering to values. If two companies in the same industry are making small and great progress, surely the latter company will be following higher values. Even one great value fully followed can give extraordinary results. Some of the values that are meaningful to business are: safety, security of job, family feeling, constant progress, reliability, honesty, efficient after-sales service, maximum use-value of product, courtesy, friendliness, ideals in work, trustworthiness, quality product and loyalty. The required level of education for the work of every employee is essential. Education expands the mental horizons. An educated person is better for his education. Each level of work requires a minimum education. Workers, supervisors, clerks, managers, accountants, etc. should have the education necessary for them. That makes the work enjoyable for them and productive for the company. The idea of accomplishing a higher work through a less educated person may be successful in the exception, but as a rule it hurts the work. Full essential training for the work is important. Education is the base, training is the top dressing. Regular systematic training, though costly in the beginning, pays rich dividends in the long run. Generally we let our workers be trained during work. We expect them to be trained by experience. As a rule this training is slow, partial and expensive. One bad result here is that they acquire a wrong training. One company in Holland followed the first principle of recruiting people and expecting them to acquire training through service. Another recruited trained people. Though both were of comparable endowments in all respects, in five years the second company rose to the 3rd position in the industry while the first company was ranked 21. Perfect skill is of permanent value. Skill in works is yoga, says The Gita. To see that everyone in the company acquires perfect skill in what he does will raise any company from the bottom to the top. It is the duty of the owner of the company to constantly raise the skills of his workers. That makes the workers happy and labour relations smooth. A company with 50 workers had at least 25 labour problems in two years and was closed for five months. The proprietor agreed to take very special steps to give complete skill to all his workers. The situation reversed and the labour trouble disappeared. Courage in crisis is a great endowment. Intelligent risk in seeking opportunity brings reward. To advise one in a crisis to have courage is easy, but to give him courage is not so practical. Granting that a company faces a crisis, the entrepreneur finds himself helpless and it leads to panic. But there are people who in a similar situation do not get panicky and who are courageous. About 15 years ago, a Rs.150 crore company faced a market situation in which it became clear to all that it was only a matter of time before the company would have to close. Employees at all levels were filled with terror. The situation was in nobody’s hands. The proprietor was courageous and calm. He was the one who would lose the most but he did not lose courage. In a few weeks, there were several unexpected developments and the crisis blew away. Today the company’s assets are worth Rs.1,000 crores. Anything could have happened. It is the courage of one man at the top that saved the situation. Well, he was one endowed with courage. What about ordinary mortals who get panic-stricken? Of what use is this advice to them? Knowledge that courage is a saviour brings some courage. If one is a devotee and prays for courage, Mother grants plenty of it. Resourcefulness is always a great value. In business it pays rich dividends. Mother’s devotees can find their minds becoming more and more resourceful as days pass. A determination to be resourceful helps it to flower. Simply described, resourcefulness means to find a use for every resource and to find a solution for given-up tangles. A milk society was continuously losing money, and the co-operative department considered closing it. One low level officer expressed the opposite view. They asked him to try. In six months, he turned it into a profit-making society and even purchased a delivery van. Pleased by his resourcefulness, the department asked whether he could start a co-operative bank. He did. In the first three years, his performance record was top-most in India. He was a simple man who retired at a non-gazetted post. But he was resourceful. At the silver jubilee of the bank, they hunted out the man from his retirement and gave him an award. Endless Progress To have constant endless progress as a goal enlivens a business organisation. When a sugar mill was founded, the owner sought Mother’s blessings. She wrote "For endless progress". He registered 1,500 acres of cane for the first year crushing. The average per acre yield in the adjacent factory area was 28 tons. This factory fixed a high average of 45 tons an acre, since initial cultivation gives higher return. Mother’s endless progress reached the fields too. The fields yielded 85 tons an acre, which even touched 110 tons in exceptional cases. The factory kept on crushing the first year’s cane for two full years. Mother herself blesses her devotees with endless progress. If endless progress is accepted as a conscious goal, the company does progress endlessly. If a devotee starts a company, endeavours along these lines seriously and meets with a fair level of success, his company will have several characteristics that can be observed.
If ever any difficulty arises, either it will be in our power to remove it or it will be a stepping stone to higher achievement. Mother as a Disciplinarian Mother’s love is great. We can say that her love is as great as her disciplines. But She had the unique endowment of disciplining people not through authority and punishment but through her love. Those who were well brought up, those who came forward to discipline themselves were appreciated by her. Discipline, external and internal, is necessary, but it should not be imposed from outside. It must be self-imposed. Discipline is an article of faith with Mother. We can say that following Mother’s rules is as good as following Mother herself. The more disciplined you are, the closer you are to Mother. Levels of Prayer Think of Mother when a crisis comes. It is better to think of Her before the act commences. If you want to start any work and that work has several strands, has a history—a karma —first think of those obstacles before thinking of the work. Prayer to Mother with a mind of awareness is a better prayer. Keep your home clean and be diligent in all your acts before you think of praying to Mother for any particular work. Better still, keep the mind clean before cleaning the house. If you pray to Mother before an act commences, knowing the obstacles involved in it, and with a clean mind and home, prayer is most powerful. If you can do that much, you do not have to pray, because She thinks of you. No prayer is necessary to accomplish any work. Still, prayer has a place for higher perfection. Prayer, concentration, effort, consecration are powerful yogic methods and instruments. A diligent, alert, conscious householder need not resort to any of these methods to have a work done. All his work will be well accomplished. He can resort to prayer or consecration for greater perfection in sadhana. Mother as a Mother Apart from Her divinity, Mother is pre-eminently a mother. She gives as few others can give. She often said that she had to act according to the mother in her. A mother disregards her children’s deficiencies and pays attention only to their requirements. A Jewish proverb says that God created mothers because he could not be present everywhere. She gives you spiritual experiences and, when you manage to lose them, she helps you to regain them too. She starts giving to you before you even come to her in a measure no one can imagine. A man was trying in vain to sell a property of his for twice the market value! He did not succeed. Mother, whom he had not heard of, helped him to succeed for her own reasons. After the deal was successfully finalised, his temperament spoiled it. For another six years he could not sell it. He once came to Darshan out of curiosity. In return of that man’s visit of curiosity, Mother brought him an offer of purchase for three times the impossible price he asked for. Again at the time of finishing the deal, he spoiled it. He was now shown that it had come to him from Mother. The man agreed and visited the samadhi to pray. The lost offer came back. That is how Mother gives. A young man who started life on a salary of Rs.125 was invited to the Ashram sometime in June of a certain year. In the middle of July, the young man happened to meet the elderly man who had sent the invitation earlier. He suggested to the youngster to visit the Ashram on August 15. Mother and the Ashram were unknown to the youth till then. In the first week of July, the young man’s income rose to Rs.960. Neither the young man nor his people knew it had any connection with his proposed visit to the Ashram a month and a half later. Mother alone can give as She gives. We see only the external material gifts and are oblivious of what She pours into the soul of the man. Mother says the weather is under the control of some little entities. They all obey her. When children in the Ashram school pray for no rain during the games, these entities answer positively. It is a constant experience of our school children. Indira Gandhi was in North India, touring parts that were affected by drought. A devotee was there in those parts by chance. He met the Prime Minister and told her that a prayer to Mother would bring rain. She instructed a telegram to be sent to Mother by the devotee. Rain came in copious measure in response to the prayer. Pondicherry and its environs have never suffered the negative effects of drought. From a certain village, a group of workers were coming to an ashram factory. They complained of water scarcity in their village. The news reached Mother. Mother asked the villagers to pray. Rain descended in torrents and would not stop. Too much rain now caused a problem. News again went to Mother. She smiled and the rain stopped. Mother easily tunes herself to nature and nature responds to her readily. It is the experience of several devotees that, in answer to their prayer, several times a cyclone that was predicted to hit in the next few hours moved away. Even in cyclone-devastated areas, devotees have reported that their properties, even an advertisement board, have been left intact though surrounded by several damaged buildings. Robert was someone who brought rain wherever he went. Even in a desert he visited, there were unprecedented rains creating a flood. Robert was fond of Sri Aurobindo’s Gayatri mantra and started chanting it. The temperature reached peak levels as in dog days. It was Robert who constantly complained about the heat. When he suspected a relation between his chanting and the rising heat, he suspended the chanting. The heat came down. But the Gayatri he was chanting would not stop. It started repeating itself inside him without his initiative. The heat rose. With great effort Robert succeeded in stopping the Gayatri and maintained that control till summer passed away. Mother always had several types of relationships with the Gods. She once saw a film on Anusuya, the wife of a rishi. Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva appeared before Anusuya and asked food to be served by her naked. Anusuya turned the Tirumurthis into babies by the power of her chastity and served them food. Mother commented that it was a lovely story. Mother explained that through her devotion Anusuya invoked the Supreme to come to the rescue of her husband against the erratic wishes of the Tirumurthis. Mother used to conduct meditation in the hall and several gods, goddesses and rishis used to regularly participate in the meditation. She said they perched themselves on the cornices of the meditation hall pillars. Durga came every year a day or two before the puja for Durga. Mother spoke to Durga about surrender to the Supreme. This concept was new to Durga and she was intrigued. Later she understood. Durga explained that the gods never thought of surrender. It was not their way. When Durga understood and offered surrender to the Supreme, she enjoyed the new experience. Once Mother spoke to the sea god and asked him not to disturb her work by encroaching into her building. Mother had heard a lot about Ganesh. One day she meditated to see him. She saw him approaching with his trunk and a smile. She was surprised that he did exist. He was happy to do anything for Mother. Mother expressed her need for money for the work. He agreed to do his part. Mother said that for ten years money flowed in constantly. Later she took up work in America. By that time money had dried up. She called Ganesh and asked him what happened to his promise. Ganesh expressed his inability, saying that Mother’s need was too big and his resources were limited. Mother explained that since people in America had no knowledge or faith in Ganesh, he could not give her money for work in America. A Ganesh temple near the Ashram was being renovated and there was not enough space on one side. Ganesh came to Mother and asked her for space from one of her adjacent buildings. Mother called her people and arranged for it. Mother returned to her room one day and found Shiva standing there. He was as tall as the room. His head reached the ceiling. She had a conversation with him and he said he was willing to help her. She wanted her physical ego to be eliminated. Shiva consented and the next moment the sensation in the cells showed that the dissolution of her physical ego had begun. She told Sri Aurobindo what had happened. He felt it was not necessary at that time. Immediately every movement in Mother’s cells stopped. Mother had asked Shiva and Krishna to incarnate in the body of Sri Aurobindo to expedite his mission. Shiva was unwilling and said he would come after the advent of the Supermind. Krishna agreed and entered into Sri Aurobindo’s body. Mother says she saw with her own eyes Krishna incarnating in Sri Aurobindo’s body. She reported all that to Sri Aurobindo and found that he was not interested. Sri Aurobindo used to say that he never wanted to be limited by the gods. The gods belong to the overmental plane. Their dimension, Mother says, belongs to the dimension of earth. Overmind is a plane where the full power of truth does not exist. It is a plane where truths can protect themselves and act, eliminating the destructive influence of ignorance. Overmind brings together several truths to act in unison. Krishnavatar came from this plane. The color of this plane is blue. Sri Aurobindo explained to Mother that the overmental truth had no power to transform ignorance into knowledge. It can function successfully protecting its truth and avoiding the warping influence of ignorance. Truth is self-existent in the next plane of Supermind. Here there is no ignorance. Power of Supermind can enter into ignorance, reach its foundation of truth, unite all of them and from there transform ignorance into knowledge. Without that seed of truth, however little, neither ignorance, nor evil, nor falsehood, nor even hostility can exist. Beings of the supramental plane are of the dimension of the universe. On February 29, 1956 when the Supermind descended, Mother found herself as big as the universe and in a golden form. The gods have a limitation when they come to function in the supramental plane. Sri Aurobindo had declared he never wanted to be limited by the gods in his work. After 1950, Mother sometimes took to walking. She was walking daily on the verandah outside Sri Aurobindo’s room. After a few days, she found Krishna walking alongside her. Much later, she found Sri Aurobindo instead of Krishna walking with her. These were adorable moments in her life. She remarked to Sri Aurobindo how nice it was to walk with him. It was much better than the other work she was doing. From that day onwards, he stopped coming. After sometime Mother found that, when she walked on the verandah, She was followed by HERSELF. ______________ Notes: [2] A lakh = 100,000. One lakh of rupees in 1999 is approximately $ 2325. _______________ Mother and Sri Aurobindo were on earth at all critical periods of evolution to guide it, said Sri Aurobindo. Answering a question about how long they were on earth, he said since the beginning. Mother always said that all those who are here in the Ashram, those who were here and even those who had left the Ashram, were with them in several previous births. Everyone of them had, in earlier births, prayed to Her for the boon of being with Her at the time of Divine fulfilment. And that is why they are all here, said Mother. In a certain period, Mother was telling sadhaks about their previous births. To one sadhak she said that she saw an emanation of Vivekananda on him. Another was a Roman general. Commenting on the royal robes of an actor on the Ashram stage, Mother said he looked exactly like his past self as a Roman Emperor. Reincarnations of Hector, Moses, Lalitha [Radha’s play mate], a French king and Confucius were found by her among her disciples. TRANSFORMATION For human life to be transformed into Divine Life, the ego should be replaced by the soul, the thoughts of mind by the jyothi of the spirit, the attachment of the heart by divine love, the excitement of the vital by the delight of the spirit, the habitual efficiency of the body by the unfettered power of the gods, death by immortality, etc. All expressions of darkness and falsehood must be replaced by expressions of light and truth. Purna yoga’s central endeavour is to bring this about. When we receive blessings from the Mother, when we think of Her and feel we belong to her, when we really see Mother acting in our lives, we see the expressions of such a transformation. An industrialist devotee came to the Ashram on his usual annual visit, met a visitor who had come there, and discussed his own affairs in his factory. The industrialist was pleased by the half-hour discussion with the visitor and even felt that it might be useful. A week later the visitor received a cheque for Rs.2,000, requesting him to use it for the work he was doing for Mother. The industrialist was known to be a miser of a hard type. Not many people had succeeded with him in matters of money. Everyone who personally knew the industrialist refused to believe the news. Some could not even believe it after seeing the cheque. Misers of reputation have shown the ‘Divine Truth’ that misers do have generosity when they relate to Mother and have acted as men of generosity. Whenever you find a man acting exactly opposite to his nature, you can be sure Mother is at work. That is her power of transformation. The owner of a coconut garden prayed to Mother that the theft of nuts from his garden should stop. It stopped. Two men came to him. They announced that they were the thieves and that they had decided to turn over a new leaf. Theft can stop in response to prayer. The thief changing his ways and announcing it to his victim is unheard of. Wherever it exists, it is transformation. Wherever Mother acts, that touch of transformation is inevitably there. Mother has named the flower of the Indian Cork tree ‘transformation’. A bank’s offering more money than applied for; dishonest villagers returning their loans on their own; an applicant who pleaded for the inclusion of his name in the selection panel, cancelling the previous rejection order, finding his name included, not in the panel, but in the selected list; the aspirant for a bank clerkship being recruited as a bank agent; the buyer of a property offering a higher price than the one quoted by the seller—are not common to human life. They are the experiences of the devotees and expressions of Mother’s power of transformation. |