The World

                   

Do not follow the way of evil. Do not cultivate indolence of mind. Do not choose wrong views. Do not be of those who linger in the world.

 

Arise. Cast off negligence. Follow the teaching of wisdom. The sage knows happiness in this world and the other.

 

Follow the teaching of wisdom and not that of evil. The sage knows happiness in this world and the other.

 

One who looks upon the world as a bubble or a mirage, Yama the King of Death cannot find him.

Come, look upon the world as the brightly-coloured chariot of a Raja, which attracts the foolish, but where, in truth, there is nothing attractive.

 

One who, having been negligent, becomes vigilant, illumines the earth like the moon coming forth from behind the clouds.

 

One whose good actions efface the evil he has done, illumines the earth like the moon coming forth from behind the clouds.

 

The world is wrapped in darkness and few are those who find their way, who, like a bird escaping from a net, soar up towards heaven.

 

The swans take the path of the sun. Those who possess occult powers fly through the air. The sages leave 

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 this world after defeating Mara and his army of evil.    

 

No evil is impossible to him who transgresses one law of the Doctrine, who utters falsehood and who disdains the higher world.

 

In truth, misers do not attain to the world of the gods and fools do not know the happiness of giving. But the sage delights in giving and thus knows happiness in the other world.

 

Rather than ruling the earth, rather than reaching heaven, rather than reigning over the worlds, it is better to enter the upward current.

 

There are four pieces of advice here which I would like to retain for our meditation. “Do not cultivate indolence of mind.” “Do not choose wrong views” – unfortunately this is something one does all the time. And, “Arise. Cast off negligence.”

The world has been so made--at least up to now, let us hope that it will not be so for much longer  that, spontaneously, a man who is not cultured, when he is brought into contact with ideas, always chooses wrong ideas.

And a child who is not educated always chooses bad company. It is a thing I experience constantly and concretely. If you keep a child in a special atmosphere and if, from a very early age, you instill in him a special atmosphere, a special purity, he has a chance of not making a wrong choice. But a child who is taken from the world as it is and is placed in a society where there are good and bad elements will go straight to those who can spoil him, teach him wrong things, that is to say, towards the worst company.

A man who has no intellectual culture, if you give him some mixed ideas, just at random, to choose from, he will always choose the stupid ones; because, as Sri Aurobindo has told us,  

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this is a world of falsehood, of ignorance and an effort is needed, an aspiration; one must come in contact with one's inmost being – a conscious and luminous contact – if one is to distinguish the true from the false, the good influence from the bad. If you let yourself go, you sink into a hole.

Things are like that because what rules the world – oh! let us put it in the past tense, so that it becomes true – what ruled the world was falsehood and ignorance.

In fact, for the moment, it is still like that; one should have no illusions about it. But perhaps with a great effort and great vigilance we shall be able to make it otherwise... soon – the “perhaps” is for “soon”.

Surely it will come one day, but we want it soon, and that is why the last two recommendations please me: “Arise. Cast off negligence.”   

 9 May 1958 

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