WRITINGS BY THE MOTHER
© Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

The shadow

21 December 1955

Mother, you said that each one represents an impossibility. In this case, each one should concentrate on solving this impossibility, shouldn't he?

Not necessarily concentrate on that. But he has to face it, whether he knows it or not--an aspect of the problem.

I have already said this once. When you represent the possibility [old p. 420]of a victory, you always have within you the thing contrary to this victory, which is your perpetual trouble. [new p. 415]

Each one has his own difficulty. And I have given the example already once, I think. For instance, a being who must represent fearlessness, courage, you know, a capacity to hold on without giving way before all dangers and all fights, usually somewhere in his being he is a terrible coward, and he has to struggle against this almost constantly because this represents the victory he has to win in the world.

It is like a being who ought to be good, full of compassion and generosity; somewhere in his being he is sharp, sour and sometimes even bad; and he has to struggle against this in order to be the other thing. And so on. It goes into all the details. It's like that.

And when you see a very black shadow somewhere, very black, something that's truly painful, you know, you can be sure that you have in you the possibility of the corresponding light.

Why does it increase instead of diminishing?

What does that mean, "it increases"?

(The disciple can't answer.)

Here it increases? Yes. Because this is the place of the Realisation.

In life you are unconscious, you pass all your life in an absolutely vague semi-consciousness, you know nothing about yourself, except just an appearance, nothing more. And you will always be incapable of fulfilling your mission and therefore you do not meet the obstacle in the heart of the difficulty, only an appearance; you are all in the midst of appearances. It's simply that. So your faults are small, your virtues are small, your capacities are mediocre and your difficulties are mediocre, you are [old p. 421]entirely mediocre, constantly.

It is only when you begin to walk on the path of Realisation that your possibilities become real, and your difficulties become much greater--quite naturally. Things become intensified. [new p. 416]

This is why I tell people, "If you can't find peace and solitude in yourself, can't isolate yourself sufficiently to enter within yourself, if you can't do this in the conditions of ordinary life, it is certainly not here that you will be able to do it, because your first difficulty will be that you will feel invaded by everything and everybody, and will be absolutely unable to isolate yourself. If you have learnt to do it before coming here, then it will be good. But if you don't know how to do it, you will find it very difficult to do so here."

And for everything it is the same way. People who are ill-natured, those who have no control over their anger, for instance, are much worse here than in the ordinary world, because in the ordinary world they are controlled by all the necessities of life and because, for example, when they go to an office, if they get into a temper against the boss, they are thrown out. While here, we don't throw them out; they are simply told, "Try to control yourself."