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WRITINGS BY THE MOTHER
© Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

30 January 1951

How can there be "an egoistic faith in the mental being"? [Note: "An egoistic faith in the mental and vital being tainted by ambition, pride, vanity, mental arrogance, vital self-will, personal demand, desire for the petty satisfactions of the lower nature is a low and smoke-obscured flame that cannot burn upwards to heaven."]

He has described it very well: "tainted by ambition", etc. I [new p. 320]find [old p. 341]that if you put it differently, it is much more true. Is there any faith which doesn't have a little of all that? For it is said, it has been repeated that faith, if it is pure, is capable of... nothing can resist it. This means that if one were to have an absolutely pure faith, untainted by all these things, a true faith, let's say the true faith, well, nothing would be impossible. One could be transformed overnight, one could bring down the Supermind in a moment, one could... do anything, one could do anything if one had faith. But it must be a pure faith, it should not be mixed with any personal reactions or any personal will.

A pure faith is something all-powerful and irresistible. One doesn't often find a faith that is all-powerful and irresistible, and this shows that it is not quite pure. The question should be put like this: each one of us has a faith, for example, a faith in something, say a faith in the divine Presence within us. If our faith were pure, we would at once be aware of this divine Presence within us. This example is very easy to understand. You have faith, it is there, but you don't have the experience. Why? Because the faith is not pure. If the faith were quite pure, immediately, the thing would be done. This is very true. So, when you become aware that the thing is not realised at once, you can begin to look: "But why isn't it realised? What is there in my faith?" And if you go on looking with the same sincerity, you will find that there are many little things in it, so many little things--not big, as big as this--which are repulsive. Little things. So many times a little conceit comes in, and then a desire, not a very violent one--it doesn't show itself very much. The importance it gives you, the power it will give you and the satisfaction it will give you...

Collected Works of The Mother, First Edition, Volume 15, pp. 340-341