THE MOTHER
Living Her Path
   

In this article we cover a number of the key issues at work when one follows the path of the Mother. This information is mainly for those who are followers of the path of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. 

(We would like to thank the Mother's Service Society for providing much of the following materials.) 


Accept What Life, Mother Gives
Normally we like to do what we want, see people we want to see, do the work we want to work on. In a life dedicated to Mother and the Divine, we need to reverse this and do and accept what life presents us.

Mother’s way is to rise above likes and dislikes. It is to relate to the work that is given. It is to express your duty to what is given over the needs of one's self and personality. In fact if we were to observe even normal life we see that people who continuously rise in their lives have this ability to put away their personal preference and instead relate to work on hand. That is the way of progress. 

It is also the Mother's, the Divine way or value to do the work without expecting results; i.e. do it without any attachment to the work itself, including its non-spiritual rewards.


Elimination of Ego
The essential reason we do what we want rather than what life gives; i.e. what The Mother, the Divine provides, is that we live from the poise of ego. The Mother ask us to give up ego in all aspects of our lives. When we live a life of ego we are focused on our own passions, concerns, and interests and we become oblivious to the opportunities we are handed, the truths that are emerging, the full knowledge availing to us at any moment, i.e. the direction we have been pointed towards on Her path.

Should one try for a life devoid of ego -- which leads to separateness, self-assertion, preference, attachment, ignorance, and false action -- we will soon discover how enjoyable and powerful life is.

So we must eliminate all egotistic movements including expectation, impatience, assertion, greed, irritation, vindictiveness, jealousy, disappointment, etc. Instead we must move toward positive feelings, such as feeling happy at a colleague’s promotion and congratulate him, instead of feeling jealous about his advancement. Mother's Way is for is to become patient, tolerant, open, concerned, and giving.

Take disappointment. We are disappointed in life because we anticipate results. Instead we should do the work on hand and concentrate on it, and think less and less about the results. In that sense the aphorism "the journey is the reward" explains this. We would paraphrase it as "the Inner journey is the reward."

One must also develop a sense of calm and equality in all situations. If e.g. you are not promoted, if someone betrays you in work, one must not react. One must calmly accept what is and move on. One must see things not from the perspective of the ego and one's wishes and preferences, but from the perspective of the unfolding of life, that there is a Divine purpose and Will in that unfolding in your life. In that way we view the world  not from our ego-sense, but from our higher sense, the Divine's Will, the way of the Divine Mother. 

The best way to begin the journey towards non-ego is to move inward away from the surface of life into the deeper parts of our being. From the Silence that emerges there, from the detachment from the surface bubbling of life when stationed there, the self-assertiveness of the ego-sense is reduced, enabling one to interact with life through greater unity and connectedness rather than ego and separateness.

If the ideals set forth here seem too high and one feels he cannot attempt it, he can make a small but significant beginning that will lead to the goal in time.

In this light here are a few specifics we can follow:

1. As a first step, it must be possible to drop jealousy, hatred, offensiveness, selfishness, etc. One can make a full-throated effort, at least, with one of them.

2.  As a second step, try to take another man’s point of view, train yourself to listen, be pleasant and try any such attitude.

3. At the physical level of action, punctuality, orderliness, regularity, etc. will help the efforts above.

4. At a higher level act on faith.

If you are not able to follow any of these with full significance, at least start following the external physical versions of them in behavior.  
 


Doing the Work in the Right Spirit
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.



Accept Mother as Center of Our Lives
The greatest attitude on the path is to accept The Mother, the Divine as the central focus, purpose, and meaning in our lives.


Doing Work for the Sake of The Mother, the Divine
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.

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The Children of The Mother
The future belongs to Spirituality, not religion, says The Mother. The time of religion is over according to Her. Religion is many following the inspiration of one enlightened person. Spirituality is each one seeking his own illumination. As Protestantism removed the priest between Man and God, Spirituality will enable each man to seek his own God, seated inside.

The Mother was in Japan during the First World War. She recorded her Prayers and Meditations everyday, which was later published. As a preface to that publication, She wrote that there are those who give their souls to God, and others who give their work. Some give their wealth. A few others give their lives to the Divine. There are the rare few who give their souls, wealth, work and lives to the Divine. They alone are the true children of The Mother and all others are valueless ciphers for the Divine Work.

In Her scale of values, it may be impossible for us to become even valueless ciphers. Why? Is She a taskmaster and a disciplinarian? When China threatens the borders of India, the Indian leader needs nerves of iron and can no longer indulge in the luxury of non-alignment. Not all people can lead a nation in war. Divine Work embraces the universe where one has to organise new ways of life suited to the Higher Consciousness. For that, one cannot be attached to his work or life. Therefore, SHE laid down Her requirement but never persuaded anyone to take to it.

In Her Agenda She describes the yoga of the body She tried and said how horrible it was. She said She would NOT recommend this yoga to anyone. I ask people to invoke the Spirit for a better life, not for yoga. A life of utter Truthfulness brings one into the atmosphere of Her Force that is active on earth since 1956. She said that that Force had organised itself in the consciousness of a person. Yoga is for the evolutionary adult. A life of higher consciousness is for the aspirant of Truth in life, where he can express his own higher values. (Karmayogi)


All Work is Opportunity for Growth, Transformation
(under development)


Skill in Work
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.


Values in 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.

-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.

-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.

-Mother was great as an organiser. Whatever She did, she functioned through a system.

-Personal power must be replaced by the impersonal authority of a system.

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.
 


Attention to People, Things
Everything in life responds positively to attention.  People, objects, stocks of inventory, and money are but a few examples. For example, the best way to give attention to money is to account for it very accurately and promptly. Keeping accurate and up-to-date accounts of money is a powerful mechanism for attracting more of it from life.

There are endless examples we have witnessed demonstrating this power. Here's one:

One small business owner decided to give attention to his accounts, balanced eight months of back bank statements, and miraculously received $5000 from nowhere the next day.

If you bring your personal or business accounts fully and accurately up to date, you'll be able to watch the money flow to you!

Money is not the only thing that responds to attention. So do ordinary objects and things. Consider this example:

A businessperson was unable to make any substantial sales. He was told that he should give attention to and evaluate his remaining current stocks, and then make a full effort to sell them off.  After making an effort of selling but a few of the minimal stocks, an order arrived equal to six months of normal sales!

We have often seen this phenomenon where a business owner concerned by low sales or cash made the effort to sell off remaining unsold stocks, and life responded by bringing more sales. This is a powerful example of the power of attention to objects and things.

One way we give attention is by adopting the personal value of maximizing the way you use your current resources, such as money, materials, and time.

So all sorts of things respond to attention; animate and inanimate!

Finally, let's not forget to mention that people also, of course, respond to attention. Every person wants to be attended to and be the object of others attention. When you give deserving people attention, they can blossom in front of your eyes.


Education and Training
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.  


Resourcefulness
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.

·         There will be an atmosphere of hope and joy in the work.  

·         Public image will be one of admiration and approval.

·         Individuals in the company will be sought after by everyone from everywhere.

·         Expansion, not mere growth, will be endless.

·         No difficulty will ever arise


Courage
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.


Strength
Strength is one of the important determinants of a person's overall character and capacity for accomplishment in life. Just as one can admire another person's goodness and compassion, we can also admire their strength of character. A person of both great goodness and great strength can rise to unlimited heights of joy, happiness, and accomplishment in life.

One of the interesting ironies we have observed along the way is that we can often learn a lot from "bad" people. Many bad people have something that many of us lack -- strength. These individuals may nor be using their strength for a good cause, yet the fact is their strength advances their cause. On the other hand many "good" people lack strength in life, and could probably learn a great deal from anyone (good or bad) who has it in abundance.

One of the keys to personal growth is the taking of the initiative to increase one's strength in life. One particularly interesting phenomenon we have observed is that if a person who lacks strength makes the effort to increase and assert his strength at a level higher than he/she is used to, life outwardly can respond with great reward.

Strength At Various Levels
Strength can manifest as physical strength, vital strength, and mental strength. At the physical level one can of course be a physically strong person, though even a small person can have the physical strength of endurance or good health. It can even show itself as physical courage. At the vital level strength can show as determination, courage, perseverance, toughness, and willingness to confront life's difficulties head on. Mental strength can show up as the ability to maintain intense, keen interest in something, such as the details of policies or the formation of a logical argument.

We can take an individual, such as the character of the Count in the Count of Monte Cristo, and evaluate the person in terms of strength at these three levels. (MSS:) He had physical strength due to his life as a sailor and enduring hardship in prison. He had vital strength negatively born of suffering and the urge for revenge, positively due to the enormous wealth he acquired and the social position it gave him, and he had mental strength derived from the wonderful education given by Abbe Faria.

Similarly strength can show up at these three levels of physical, vital, and mental for social entities, such as teams, organizations, businesses, institutions, and nations. For example, Israel has shown great strength in its fortitude in the face of being surrounded by enemies. Similarly many poor countries show great resiliency and strength to exist despite their difficult realities. Or in the social arena such as sports we see how a team can show great strength, despite limited talent, and succeed far beyond their physical capacities. On the other hand, another team can have great talent but not succeed in the decisive games because there is not an inner toughness or strength.


Taking Responsibility
Throughout our lives we are confronted with external pressures that bear on us greatly. It is how we react to these pressures that determine to a large extent to what degree we accomplish in life. Those who take responsibility, see their own weakness as it relates to the problem, grow and accomplish. Those who blame others or ignore the pressures, stagnate and achieve less. For example, in the book Pride and Prejudice the main hero Darcy is confronted by great pressures in life, many of which he created in the first place. Fortunately, he responds positively to the pressures by taking personal responsibility for his actions. He does this by acknowledging his character flaws and misdeeds. This acknowledgment and acceptance causes him to solve a very difficult problem, which sets in motions a series of even more positive events for others and for himself. It also and enables him to grow as an individual, which leads to his ultimate achievement in the story, his marriage to Eliza.

We see how magnificently life responds to taking responsibility in life. On the other hand another individual confronted by the same great pressures of life fails to take responsibility, blames others, and doesn't grow or accomplish in life as a result.

When life bears down on us and exerts pressures we can respond positively or negatively. Those who respond positively, who take responsibility rather than blame others or be in different, grow as individuals, and set the stage for great positive responses from life, and great achievement and happiness.


Higher Attitudes
We are filled with attitudes that we acquire from our family, our friends, and our environment. They are also in the very fiber of our being, inherited through our genes. Many of these attitudes are quite good, while others are less than stellar. However, if we can identify a bad attitude, and make an effort to change it, we will find that life will suddenly respond and bring us good fortune.

There are three basic types of attitudes that we can identify; attitudes about ourselves, attitudes towards others and things around us, and attitudes towards life itself. Examples of attitudes about ourselves is having high or low self-esteem, or great or little self-confidence. Examples of attitudes about others are our ability to have goodwill or bad will or goodwill towards others; trust or mistrust of others, concern or indifference toward others, and so forth. Attitudes about life might be include the feeling that good things will always come our way, or a faith that difficult situations and circumstance will always turn out for the best. The opposite is that life always treats us bad, and we are doomed to difficulty and failure.

A positive attitude can overcome a negative situation, and enable positive circumstances to suddenly emerge, e.g. where objects like machines suddenly work better. We also see how people respond better to this shift in attitude, as in this case, where another individual is suddenly elevated to a new position in life. As a result of shifting one's attitude, life suddenly, abundantly, miraculously responds in kind; defying all of the normally accepted rules of logic, defying all of our normal perceptions of cause and effect, and space and time.

Negative Expressions Attracts Negative Responses
Whereas we see that positive improvements in attitudes attract positive responses from life, sudden negative attitudes attract the reverse. For example, if one speaks negatively about another person or about a situation or circumstance, it tends to suddenly attract negative things from life.

The best approach is to avoid all negative expressions towards others, things, and situations. Negative expressions are reflections of a wanting attitude, habit, or opinion, which has the tendency to suddenly attract negative responses from life. It can even destroy a work.


Inner-Outer Correspondence
The spiritual experience often leads to an awareness that the things that occur outside of ourselves and the things within us have a direct correlation and relationship. The mind says they are divided, are of two different worlds, and cannot possibly have a direct relationship. For example, how could changing an attitude possibly relate to a positive circumstance happening to you a few moments after be related in any way. Our minds suggest that such a relationship lies beyond the normal bounds of causality, space and time. Yet, that is precisely what occurs.

Our conclusion is that everything that is happening around you is a reflection of innermost thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes. If something is wrong on the outside, you find the corresponding negative inner perception, change it, and watch life respond positively in kind. This in turn leads us to the understanding that we can and should take responsibility for everything that is happening around us, and can make inner changes to effect the world around us.

Interestingly, we have witnessed that if people take this approach, they can bring about an instant outer response from life. For example an individual changes an attitude about someone at work, and instantly gets a call thereafter that a new project has been agreed upon that that person is to lead; or a man cleans something he was reluctant to clean before and instantly finds out that he has run into some expected money. This is called a Life Response.

If your attitudes and opinions are reflected by the circumstances around you, then we can make an effort to change the world on the outside by making a change on the inside; by changing our attitudes, opinions, and habits, or taking a specific action. Under certain circumstances life on the outside can instantly respond to your inner effort. If you can look at every positive and negative circumstance and match it to a corresponding attitude, value, or habit inside yourself, you will be well on your way to understanding the character of life, and gain the ability to master life. There is no faster way to change the world around us than by acting from a positive inner poise.


Life Response
Normally, we believe that taking an action on our part brings about a corresponding result in life. This is of course true. There is also a secret knowledge that certain special actions we take and certain attitudes we have can instantaneously evoke a positive response from life from seemingly out of nowhere. We call this dramatic phenomenon a "life response."

For example, let's talk about money. We are all aware of the importance of intelligence, hard work, social position, skill, organization, and other forms of strength and power to create wealth. There are, however, a few hidden strategies to creating an immediate response from life concerning money. For one, keeping accurate and up-to-date accounts of money is a powerful mechanism for attracting more of it from life. One small business owner decided to balance eight months of back statements in a weekend and received $5000 from out of nowhere the next day. This is an example of a life response. It is virtually instantaneous, and appears to come from seemingly out of nowhere; thus the moniker "instantaneous miraculousness."

There does not seem to be any obvious connection between the actions and the results, yet somehow life responds to the initiation of this person. That is the case because life is organized in ways far beyond our normal, i.e. outer perceptions of cause and effect. There are also inner laws of cause and effect that are in operations, which are mostly hidden from us, are subconscious or unconscious to us. The example of attention to money and how it generates a sudden, abundant, instant life response is but one example of this inner causality we have discovered over the years.

There are perhaps a dozen or so key human behaviors that can trigger such positive, instant, abundant life response. E.g. in addition to the power of attention to keeping accounts up to date to attract money, being as careful and prompt in paying debts as in collecting what is owed to you attracts money.

Attention to finances and taking care of financial debts are in essence forms of higher organization attracting money through the inner forces of cause and effect. Another example of this inner power of organization is cleanliness. For example, we have found that cleaning up and organizing an area around you brings about a very fast response from life.

Just as organizing money accounts and paying debts on time attracts money and fortunate circumstance to you, so does cleanliness and organizing things around you one level higher than they currently are. 

Sometimes physical things, such as stored away objects or stocks of inventory in a business are ignored or forgotten. If one makes an effort to give it a new level of attention life can miraculously respond.

You can also change life's circumstances by overcoming a limiting or negative attitude, habit, or opinion. This is perhaps the most powerful method of all!

Changing an attitude can make life respond. So can taking a positive decision, especially if it was something not taken before.

You can also make life respond by attempting to improve yourself, such as learning a new skill to improve your career.

Finally, you can make life respond by quietly wanting something (preferably something that is necessary!) from within yourself, without expressing it outwardly or demanding it. Some would call this "the power of mind over matter."

When we master the inner rules and laws of cause and effect, we gain an enormous power over life that we didn't have before. This knowledge is one of the great secrets of living one's life from our deepest self awareness.

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Moving the Collective
There are several approaches to affecting the collective. One Appa suggests is that of there is a problem around us we want to change, identify the corresponding element in ourselves, agree to change it, and offer it to Mother, the collective will move.

We can also affect the collective by taking a great interest in the subject, studying it and understanding it from all possible angles, and with great intensity offer it to Mother. Usually the collective will respond.

Moving Conditions for Yourself
When Mother does not respond to a personal situation even though one's thoughts about Her are 100% positive, it usually means she is waiting for a wanting aspect of our being to change first -- often a limiting attitude. If we recognize and change it, life will instantly move on our behalf.

Life Response and Divine Life
If life response becomes a universally known wisdom, Sri Aurobindo's ‘Divine Life on Earth’ will be well on its way to becoming a reality.

 


Consecration (i.e. Opening to the Force)
Perhaps the greatest secret that we reveal is a knowledge about a new power that exists on earth. It is the power that when utilized can create instant success and accomplishment in your life, solve any problem, enable infinite possibility, and enable an individual to evolve from his current consciousness to a higher status of awareness in life.

All one has to do is open to this power, this spiritual Force a moment before taking any action or commencing any activity. Thereafter, you will likely notice that everything goes right, circumstance turn your way, life cooperates, and a new feeling and energy comes into play. For example, just the right person will arrive when you are were seeking solutions from others to help you with an issue; or a phone call will come to you from out of nowhere solving a problem or providing a solution; or a sense of calm and peace will arise in the environment where there was previously agitation and stress.

Opening to this higher force before commencing an act has the power to evoke positive responses from life. Also actions are completed much better than expected, people respond more positively, events move more quickly, and life "cooperates."  

To experience this effect just once in one's life is to set one onto a new course in life.

This consecration of an event can also lead to what we consider spiritual results as well - such as a deep sense of peace and calm, a feeling of harmony and unity of purpose with others or things around one in the environment, or even an inner feeling of spiritual joy, delight, and bliss.

Different Approaches to Consecration
You can practice this technique of consecration, this opening to the spiritual Force, in different ways. Some are able to consecrate before a major event in their lives; some are able to do it regularly before a major activity or activities in a working day (such as a teacher consecrating before a class, a manager consecrating before writing a new report, or an individual visiting a relative). Some are even able to consecrate before the small activities of the day (such as before brushing one's teeth, or driving a car). At whatever level you practice this technique, you are sure to see real results.

We believe that this spiritual force and power that is accessed through the method of consecration has become more active in the world in the last fifty years; especially the last ten or twenty. It is now more accessible, and has a greater power of effectivity to bring about great results. Why this is so requires an explanation of the evolution of what this spiritual Force is, what is its changing nature that makes its so powerful now, and what is likely to make it even more powerful in the future. We have addressed some of these points in another article on the emergence of this Force in life. 

Spiritual Nature of the Force
Briefly, we can think of this Force as the
active power of the highest consciousness; that is, of what we call God, the Divine, the Absolute, or Brahman as is known in the East. This power of the divine consciousness has the ability to create instant truth, knowledge, success, and joy in our lives. What normally would take a week, a month, or a lifetime to accomplish can happen in a few days, a few hours, or even instantly. What would normally take considerable effort, movement, and interaction on your part can take place right where you are. 

We can try to understand this phenomenon from the metaphysical perspective. We can say that the universe emerged from God, the Absolute, the original Omnipresent Divine Reality. The Absolute has always been there, is there now, and always will be there. In order to manifest the universe from the Divine reality, It extended itself through a new plane, which we call the Supramental plane. That plane was the intermediary between the Divine Reality and the universe that was created from out of the Divine reality. The Supramental plane served to coordinate various aspects between the Divine reality and the forms in the universe that would emerge from that Divine reality. In that way this Supramental plane was the ultimate force of creation, since is enabled the Divine to manifest into a universe of forms. That ultimate power which enabled creation is also available to us so that we too can manifest creative results in our own lives.

When the individual opens to, remembers this power before an event or an activity that is about to start, the Absolute transfers its infinite powers through this intermediary Force to the particular situation that the individual is about to engage in. 

Opening to the Force enables problems to be solved, solutions to appear out of nowhere, harmony to be created, success to flourish, perfection to come about, and joy to rise. As life responds abundantly, quickly, miraculously to our invocation of the power, we will see that our normally accepted notions of space and time, cause and effect are overcome and transcended. Even what we believe is possible, i.e. what we perceive is as finite is overcome, as the infinite potentials of life appear in what we formally perceived as finite possibility. These are the results of the infinite capacities of the Force, the same force that was/is the power that enabled the universe to emerge from the original Divine Reality.

The Force is the ultimate, dynamic power of creation in the universe; and that same power is available to the individual. If an individual opens to this Force at any moment, a connection is made that enables one or more of its attributes to directly enter the act or event.

This power solves problems, resolves conflicts, dissolves dead habits and unwanted traits, opens up new opportunities, generates freshness and enjoyment in everything we do, widens the personality, deepens our awareness, and reveals one's true inner self. 

This infinite, dynamic, creative power, sometimes referred to as "Truth Consciousness," was first discovered or perhaps we should say rediscovered by the Indian sage and seer Sri Aurobindo in the first half of the 20th century.

We ask you to try this method and approach, and see if you experience the extraordinary results. If you have the experience even once, it can change your outlook on reality, giving you a whole new perspective on the nature and powers that are available in life. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of individuals we know of have had the experience of connecting to the Force, with stunning results in terms of their accomplishment, success, and happiness in life.


Solving Current Problems
It is also possible to take consecration a few steps further. For example, you can also consecrate a current problem, and through consecration, overcome it; even turning it into an unexpected opportunity. Needless to say, such a change in fortune will bring about a profound joy in one's life.

So consecration, or perhaps we can call it "offering up the problem" to a higher power, to the Force, also solves problems. It solves them instantaneously, miraculously, and in creative ways not thought of before. It even reveals to us new unthought of opportunities. It has the power to overcome negativity and it has a creative power; giving us access to that same creative, dynamic power that enabled the universe to manifest from the Divine reality. It is the ultimate power in life at our disposal.


Opening to Power Matched by Changing Corresponding Weakness
So you can overcome any problem in life; a conflict with the boss, a physical ailment, a money problem, or confusion on a programming job. All of life is in play when we consecrate a problem. 

There are however instances where you consecrate an act, event, past problem, etc. and get no results. This can of course be disconcerting for those who have faith in the Force. There is a simple meaning to this outcome: It is that the Force cannot move unless a corresponding limitation or weakness in our own selves is also overcome. When one invokes he Force, there are various parts of our being that are at play. If there is no result from invoking the Force, then one or more of these aspects in one's self are limited or negative, are blocking the action of the Force, and need to be overcome or otherwise resolved for the power to move. Then, as soon as you change that part of your nature, you will see an abundant response from life to your earlier consecration.

For example, an individual opens to the Force concerning a difficult situation with his boss. He offers with great intensity, but there is no results. It is only when he overcomes his reluctance to meet with the boss and discuss the matter directly with his boss, is his problem resolved. Not only that, but a very painful neck problem that he had had for six months also simultaneously vanished. The combination of overcoming one's limitation --whether it be a bad attitude, or a false opinion, or a negative past action -- in tandem with the Force, will enable wonderful life response if an opening to the Force alone does not do the trick.

Overcoming Past Problems
In addition to consecrating an event that is about to take place, or a current problem, you can also use the Force to overcome problems of the past, including the effect of mistakes of the distant past on your current situation. In other words, one can also consecrate any past difficulties or problems to change one's fortune in the present.

You can consecrate past limitations and problems, which will dissolve them, resulting in positive, abundant, instantaneous opportunities and other changes in fortune in the present. This is possible because the Force is beyond any limitations of time; of past, present, and future. That's the case because the source power behind the Force, that which created the universe, is in touch with the timelessness of the Divine Reality.

Spiritual Results Too
Consecration not only brings great gross, material results, but it also brings spiritual results as well - such as a deep sense of calm and peace, a feeling of harmony and unity of purpose with others or things around one in the environment, a deep perception of knowledge and truth and wisdom, or even an inner feeling of spiritual joy, delight, and bliss. Let's return to our earlier example to show an example of this:

Intensity of Consecration
Normally, we make the connection with the spiritual domain through concentration or prayer; calling to a Divine source or the spirit within us. In these instances, we have usually withdrawn from the fervor of our emotions in order to make a connection with the higher power. However, we have seen that the more intense the consecration, the greater the results; i.e. the greater life responds.

By "intensity" we mean that our ardor for the Divine help through the consecration is intense, sincere, deep, and full. When one reaches this state, the intensity of the nagging problem or difficulty is transferred to the intensity of the offering of the situation or circumstance to the Divine. The transference of the intensity from the situation to the offering (or, better yet, intense consecration supported by a soft and simple mental clarity of thought of the situation) evokes great positive response from life.

Scale of Reference in Consecration
For the most part the consecration we have spoken consists of using the Higher Power to create positive gain in one's own life, for one's own sake and benefit. As one moves further on the path of personal growth, development, and evolution one comes to the point that one begins to focus not only on one's own interests, but the interests of others, of the community, of the society, and eventually the interests of the Divine Spirit itself.

There is thus an ascending scale of reference that extends from the very limiting self-interest of the individual, filled with his poor attitudes, selfishness, self-interest, etc., to a higher level where one is free of these limitations and can invoke a response to a consecration, to a higher level still where the scope broadens to the interests of others, and then on to the collective, and finally to the Divine's Will itself.

The higher we are o that scale of reference when we consecrate, the greater its effectivity, hence its results.

Say for example, you are a business person who wishes a great increase in sales for your retail business. We can perform the consecration at these various ascending levels of consciousness, each getting a corresponding higher and wider result. For instance, at level one I consecrate so that my day's sales will be great in order to make more money for myself. At a next higher level I consecrate to create great sales so that others can benefit, such as my staff; or the customer himself. (More customers can now have the product, including its benefit.) The same interest can apply to the community and society, who can have great benefit and delight either directly in using the products, or indirectly from other improvements that the product engenders. The result that comes will be commensurate with the reference of consecration. At a higher level still I once again consecrate to create greater sales, but this time I do it for the Divine's sake. I do it as an offering and surrender to a Higher Will that can use our products or the fact of greater sales for its own higher purpose. I again consecrate the need with great intensity and emotion, but now I defer to, surrender to the Higher Intention; to accept what the Divine wants for its own sake. Again, I may get a causal response that is stupendous; that moves the individual or the institution one is involved with to a new level of success. This is the ultimate form of consecration that leads to ultimate quantity and quality of results.

We should point out that as you move to the higher point of reference, i.e. higher purpose, you touch on the universal forces that are there just beyond our normal perceptions and levels of awareness. These universal forces and powers are themselves connected more directly to infinite realities, enabling infinite possibilities to enter into what we perceive as the finite at any moment in time.

To enable such vast possibilities, requires a fundamental change in one's nature. To reference universal forces and powers one must live one's life from a deeper poise and consciousness within; to come in contact with our Inner Being, culminating in connecting with our own personal evolving soul. This begins the process of transformation of the individual, which enables him to permanently connect to the universal forces, including the divine Force that is the object of our consecration. When one invokes the Force from these deepest levels of consciousness, its effectivity to create results is greatest. In that way one begins to have the ultimate power of creation in life. When one connects to the Force from the deepest regions within us, we gain the greatest powers of creation. We open the doors for infinite accomplishment and joy to enter our once perceived finite existence.
 


Grow by Giving
Perhaps the single most powerful way to succeed in life is to have more concern for our fellow human beings.  Normally, we are overwhelmingly concerned about ourselves, driven by our own personal motives and ambitions.  However, the happiest people literally lose themselves in the feelings, thoughts, and aspirations of others.

Are you ready to "forget yourself" and be genuinely interested in the w