In our section "Onlife Online",
we often receive questions from aspirants, who are not satisfied
with their present lives, who are trying to find a meaning in their
lives, a deeper reason for why things happen as they do, and who
are searching for a light to guide them in their actions.
Each month we take a question of this nature and present an answer
based on the writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, with the
belief that this could be of help to a larger number of persons.
We welcome further comments on making our endeavour beneficial to
all.
This time we have chosen a question
which often arises when one takes up seriously the spiritual path.
One is told that one should have no "preferences" of any
type. But we do not know what this means exactly. Obviously we cannot
accept everything, good or bad, in the same way. It is bound to
lead to problems and confusion.
We give below the Mother's revealing and beautiful answer which
brings such a clarity and insight to the whole issue. It is also
an example of how "yoga" is nothing but practical psychology.
Preference and Choice
The Mother says,
"This is playing on words! What
you call preference, I call choice. You must be in a perpetual
state of choice; at every minute of your life you must make a
choice between what drags you down and what draws you up, between
what makes you progress and what makes you go backwards; but I
do not call this having preferences, I call this making a choice
- making a choice, choosing. At every minute one has to choose,
this is indispensable, and infinitely more so than choosing once
for all between cleanliness and dirt, whether moral or physical.
At every second the choice is before you, and you may take a step
downward or a step upward, take a step backward or a step forward;
and this state of choice must be constant, perpetual, you must
never fall asleep. But this is not what I call having preferences.
Preferences - this means precisely not choosing. There is something
for which you feel sympathy or antipathy, repulsion or attraction,
and blindly, without any reason, you become attached to this thing;
or else, when you have a problem to solve, you prefer the solution
of this problem or this difficulty to be of one particular kind
or another. But that is not at all choosing - don't you see, what
the truest thing is doesn't come into question, it is a matter
of having a preference. For me the meaning of the word is very
clear: a preference is something blind, an impulse, an attachment,
an unconscious movement which is usually terribly obstinate.
You are placed in certain circumstances; one thing or another
may happen, and you yourself have an aspiration, you ask to be
guided, but within you there is something which prefers the answer
to be of a certain kind, the indication to be a particular one,
or the event to come about in one way rather than another; but
all this is not a question of choice, it is a preference. And
when the answer to your aspiration or prayer is not in accord
with your desire, this preference makes you feel unhappy, you
find it difficult to accept the answer, you must fight to accept
it; whereas if you had no preferences, whatever the answer to
your aspiration, when it comes, you cling to it joyfully, spontaneously
with a sincere élan. Otherwise you are compelled to make an effort
to accept what comes, the decision which comes in answer to your
aspiration; you wish, desire, prefer things to be like this and
not like that. But that, indeed, is not a choice. The choice is
there at every minute; every minute you are faced with a choice:
the choice to climb up or go down, the choice to progress or go
backwards. But this choice does not imply that you prefer things
to be like this or like that; it is a fact of every moment, an
attitude you take.
Choice is an Action
Choice means a decision and an action. Preference is a desire.
A choice is made and ought to be made, and if it is truly a choice,
it is made without care for the consequences, without expecting
any result. You choose; you choose according to your inner truth,
your highest consciousness; whatever happens does not touch you,
you have made your choice, the true choice, and what comes about
is not your concern. While, on the contrary, if you have preferences,
you will choose through preference in one way or another, your
preference will distort your choice: it will be calculation, bargaining,
you will act with the idea that a particular thing must happen
because this is what you prefer and not because that is the truth,
the right thing to do. Preference is attached to the result, acts
with a view to the result, wishes things to be in a particular
way and acts to bring about its wish; and so this opens the door
to all kinds of things. Choice is independent of the result. And
certainly, at every minute you can choose, you are faced with
the necessity of choosing at every second. And you do not choose
really well, in all sincerity, unless it is the truth of the choice
which interests you, and not the result of your choice. If you
choose with the results in view, that falsifies your choice.
So I say it is playing on words, it is mixing up two different
things; and so you ask questions which seem insoluble, for it
is a mixture. There is a confusion in the question.
Treating everybody in the
same way
As for treating everybody in the same way, it is a worse confusion
still! It is the kind of confusion one makes when one says that
the Divine must treat everybody in the same way. So it would not
be worth the trouble to have diversity in the world, not worth
the trouble of not having two identical individuals; for this
contradicts the very principle of diversity.
You may - or you ought to if you can't - aspire to have the same
deep attitude of understanding, unity, love, perfect compassion
for all that is in the universe; but this very attitude will be
applied to each case in a different way, according to the truth
of that case and its necessity. What could be called the motive
or rather the origin of the action is the same, but the action
may even be totally and diametrically opposite in accordance with
the case and the deeper truth of each case. But for that, precisely,
one must have the highest attitude, the most profound, the most
essentially true, that which is free from all outer contingencies.
Then one can see at every minute not only the essential truth
but also the truth of the action; and in each case it is different.
And yet, what we may call "feeling" - though this is
an inadequate word - or the state of consciousness in which one
acts, is essentially the same.
But this cannot be understood unless one enters the essential
depth of things and sees them from the highest summits. And then
it is like a centre of light and consciousness high enough or
deep enough to be able to see all things at the same time, not
only in their essence but in their manifestation; and although
the centre of consciousness is one, the action will be as diverse
as the manifestation is diverse; it is the realisation of the
divine Truth in its manifestation. Otherwise it would be doing
away with all the diversity of the world and brining it back to
the essential unmanifest Oneness, for it is only in the non-manifestation
that the One is manifested as the One. But as soon as one enters
the manifestation, the One manifests as the multiplicity, and
multiplicity implies a multitude of actions and ways.
So, to sum up: the choice must be made without care for the consequences,
and the action must be performed in accordance with the truth
of the multiplicity in the manifestation".
- The Mother
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